


Twin Sunrise

by Chi-chi-chimaera (gestalt1), gestalt1



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Grey Jedi, Holocrons for All, Inquisitor!Ezra, Limbs for None, Past Character Death, Redemption, Sith Shenanigans, Skywalker Luck, Some Body Horror Later On, The Trials of Babysitting, the Force plays favourites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2018-04-30 11:36:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 55
Words: 302,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5162474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gestalt1/pseuds/Chi-chi-chimaera, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gestalt1/pseuds/gestalt1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exploring an ancient Jedi Temple on Vrogas Vas, Luke runs into a little more trouble than he bargained for. Meanwhile Doctor Aphra has been sent to secure the pilot who destroyed the Death Star, and the Inquisitor who was once Ezra Bridger has a mission of his own. Their colliding paths will lead deep inside the Temple, to the revelation of secrets decades old, made only more complicated when Darth Vader comes to claim his son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One: Vrogas Vas

**Author's Note:**

> Nanowrimo 2015 or Bust! AKA Fallout 4 comes out on the 10th, so write as much as you can before then! Technically goes AU from Rebels Season 2 - Seige of Lothal, but main-story changes start from after Marvel's Darth Vader #11 and Star Wars #11.
> 
> I must also mention that I subscribe to all of [ Fialleril's ](http://fialleril.tumblr.com/) Tatooine slave culture thoughts, so any worldbuilding on that particular front is almost certainly theirs. (They're also on AO3 [ here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Fialleril/).) 
> 
> I'm on Tumblr [ here ](http://chi-chi-chimera.tumblr.com/) come talk to me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note this was started before the Vader Down arc, when we didn't yet know what Vrogas Vas would look like.

**0 ABY - ISD Devastator, orbiting Anthan Prime, Anthan system, Outer Rim**

Inspector Thanoth was becoming a problem. Under ordinary circumstances Darth Vader would have welcomed such a high degree of competence in one of his subordinates, but this was starting to inconvenience him. The search for his son must be paramount, and he could not afford to waste time chasing over his own trail and arranging accidents for anyone who might reveal the truth, not with that pitiful pseudo-Inquisitor also hunting the boy. His Master often had strange motives and hidden plans guiding everything he did, but Vader could make no guesses as to why Sidious was showing favour towards those abominations. Did he not have the Inquisitorius at his beck and call? Did he not have Vader?

Much that his Master had done of late was concerning him. Not only Force-heresy, but the revelation that Sidious had lied to him about Padme, about his child. He had not killed her - she had lived long enough to give birth to their son. Luke. Knowing that her death had not come by his hand had lifted a great burden from him only to replace it with another; for Luke had been stolen from him, Kenobi’s final, worst betrayal. Left to grow up in the hell-hole that was Tatooine when he should have been by Vader’s side all these years, learning the ways of the Force.

And to think of the times Vader could have killed him, by accident, above Yavin or at their last meeting! He had thought little enough of it at the time, had barely even been paying attention to the boy as anything more than an untrained child not fit to wield the blade he had been given. His escape had given him cause to reconsider that, but even then he had not suspected the truth. But that was hardly Luke’s fault. It was Obi-Wan’s. Had he feared Luke’s potential? Was that why he had not seen fit to teach him _anything_?

Enough of this. Such thoughts were of no use, not until he had the boy in hand, until he could find out from him what had truly happened over the past nineteen years.

Vader signalled his meditation chamber to replace his mask and helmet, and then reached for his private comm. It was a pity he could not just kill Thanoth, but until the time he could arrange for the man’s death in a way which did not point to him he would just have to take the risk that the Inspector had found a way to monitor his personal communication. He opened the secure channel to the _Ark Angel_. Thanoth may have been clever in setting a blockade, but he could not cover the whole planet, and Aphra was a better pilot than the man gave her credit for. She had navigated the storm-clouds and bought herself enough time to make the jump to hyperspace.

“Aphra.”

“Lord Vader.” She answered at once, and there was no sign of fear in her. He might have doubted her, her loyalty or her sanity, had he not read her through the Force. She was, in all honesty, committed to his cause. Her words to him, her appreciation of the small part she might play in his plans for the galaxy, was all true. This was not a sentiment that he encountered often and it was... pleasing. Unlike most Imperial officers, Aphra could respect him without the need to be afraid of him. And yet in working for Vader's own ends, she had become a danger to him, for Aphra now knew things that allowed her a hold over him. She had proved that when she had warded off her death with the promise of finding his son.

He would not kill her _yet_ , but as they both knew, he _would_ kill her.

“Prove that I have not erred in allowing you to live,” he told her.

“The Ante delivered,” she replied. “Skywalker is on Vrogas Vas. It’s a small, insignificant mud-ball in the Outer Rim, but I suppose small and insignificant is where you want to be when the whole Empire is after you.”

Vrogas Vas. The name resonated in some distant corner of his memory, but he could not think of where he might have heard it before. However he doubted that his son had gone there simply to hide. Subtlety did not appear to be part of the boy’s vocabulary. He had been the same way, once. No, there must be some other reason.

And yet how to reach his son, when the Inspector remained a suspicious, capable anchor to this system? The situation would not be one where the vast might of the Imperial Starfleet would be of any benefit. Rather a small team, or Vader only, should be sufficient to retrieve the boy. As he did not anticipate being able to leave at any point in the near future, then it would have to be someone he trusted. Someone whom he _knew_ had no other allegiances. To his discomfort, this left Aphra as the only candidate.

On the other hand, it would not do to let more than one person run around the galaxy with too much vital information about him. Aphra knew too much already, and he was committed to her eventual death. Since he had been forced to spare her, it was best she continued to earn her keep.

“I will be unable to leave this system,” he told her. “Proceed to Vrogas Vas and locate Skywalker. He is not to be harmed in any way.” Vader considered for a moment. Aphra was certainly capable, but she was not Force-sensitive. Even with droid assistance, he could not reasonably expect her to capture his son and - more importantly - keep him captured. Nor would it be safe to bring Luke back to him at this time.

“Monitor Skywalker’s location. Do not lose him.”

“He’s managed to stay out of the Empire’s hands so far,” Aphra pointed out. “He’s a smart kid. He’s going to notice a tail sooner or later.”

“Then approach him. Offer your assistance.”

“Ah,” Aphra winked. “A spy on the inside of the Rebellion. Perfect. And if it keeps me well out of the way of your Inspector Thanoth all the better.”

“Indeed. Vader out.”

He shut off the connection and sat back, contemplating his course of action. The Force pulsed around him, reassuring, letting him know that he had made the right decision. Yes, Aphra would keep his son safe for him until the time that he could finally make things right and let the boy know the truth of his heritage.

Luke would join him, and then, well, then the galaxy would be theirs for the taking.

\----

**0 ABY - _Ark Angel_ , en route to Vrogas Vas**

So it looked like Lord Vader wasn’t quite finished with her yet. Aphra was well aware that her death was inevitable, but that didn’t mean she was just going to let it happen, not if she could think of some way out of it, or at least to delay it. When the Ante had given her a bargaining chip, she had used it, but that hadn’t meant she thought she would live past the next time Vader saw her. She certainly hadn’t expected to be given another mission.

Luke Skywalker. The Rebel pilot who had taken out the Death Star. Pretty impressive for a kid from some backwater like Tatooine. She’d seen the place where he’d grown up and it had reminded her a lot of her own childhood; sparse, dull, and in the end your family was just a victim when somebody stronger came along. Yeah, she’d use that. Points in common were always a good bet when trying to make friends. It was interesting that Lord Vader didn’t want her to bring the boy to him, given that the Emperor would be bound to look favourably on whoever caught the kid, but perhaps he thought by itself that wouldn’t be enough. If Skywalker led them to the Rebel base and they could catch them all in one fell swoop…

That was the sort of ambitious plan the big man in black would go for. And all of it, all these different jobs he had been sending her on, it all felt connected in some way that she just wasn’t grasping yet. The droids and the credits were obvious, as was Skywalker, but Naboo? It must fit in somewhere. Just look at Vader’s personal ship. But apart from the obvious connection to the Emperor himself - and she didn’t think that was it - she couldn’t make it mesh with everything else.

If she played her cards right and this spying mission went well, then maybe she might actually survive long enough to work out the big picture.

\----

**0 ABY - ISB Bayonet _Starfall_ , en route to Vrogas Vas**

_Hera screaming. Kanan’s eyes wide at the moment of death. The spit of burning flesh, the smell. Drawing his saber out of what was now only a corpse. Picking up the lightsaber of his foe, discarded as it rolled from his slackening fingers._

_No, no, no, over and over as Hera went for her blaster. Rage and pain swirling in the Force._

_Leaving, leaping the way he had come, a scrabble and a run through deserted passages._

_He would not kill them. There was no need. He would not let them_ make _him kill them._

The Inquisitor opened his eyes. 

His dreams had been unusually focused on the past recently. The Twelfth Brother didn’t see what reason the Force could have for directing his attention to events that had happened years ago, not when there was so much to be done in the present. The Jedi Order had once pervaded the galaxy like a particularly resilient fungus, and there always seemed to be more symptoms of their memory to be rooted out no matter how hard the Inquisitorius worked. For an example take his current mission. An ISB agent in Hutt Space had reported overhearing Grakkus the Hutt - known collector of relics of the Old Republic - mention a Jedi Temple on Vrogas Vas, which was _not_ in Hutt Space and therefore subject to the bounty that existed on all information pertaining to the Jedi. The agent would receive a generous stipend to their salary, and the Inquisitorius would, as a matter of protocol, send an Inquisitor to the temple to destroy anything dangerous and retrieve anything that might be of value.

It was routine, but the Twelfth Brother liked routine. Besides, there was satisfaction to be taken in this kind of work - the Jedi had been weak, their philosophy one which strangled and held back its disciples. Jedi lacked the strength to protect _themselves_ , much less those they loved, not that they had been permitted to love.

The Twelfth Brother had been taken in by the lies of one of the last Jedi remaining. Perhaps not overt lies, but he had implied that he could give him the strength to avenge his family and defend the new family he had found. There had been no mention that in the end he would have to give up that family. There had been no mention of the fact that true strength could only be found in the Dark Side. There had been no mention that in the end all his convictions, the things that truly _mattered_ would be made meaningless to him in the passive, pacifying wash of the Light Side.

No, the Jedi philosophy had been a poison, and the Emperor had been right to flush it from the galaxy even at the great cost that had taken. If only he had stopped there…

But the Twelfth Brother had learned long ago that some thoughts were dangerous to allow in your mind. If his ambitions did not align with those of his masters, then so be it, the time would come to act on them, but that time was not now. His training had taught him patience.

He would see what the Force would reveal to him when he arrived at Vrogas Vas.

\----

**0 ABY – Temple Ruins, Vrogas Vas**

Vrogas Vas had turned out to be a temperate planet covered in deciduous forests, water features and fog. There didn't seem to be any sign of sentient life inhabiting it, even though it could clearly support it. Luke's X-wing could perform atmospheric analysis from low-orbit, and it was mostly nitrogen and oxygen, plus traces of other elements and compounds, none of which was harmful to most galactic species. There was no evidence of recent space-traffic, no orbital platforms, no space stations, not even so much as a satellite. The star was a fat red sun which had been in the last stages of its life for millions of years and would continue on like that for millions more. Landmass temperatures looked chilly but tolerable, and the Jedi holocron had told him that there was a temple here. So why was no-one living here anymore?

The holocron of Phin-Law Wo had not said anything about that. Luke had spent his time in hyperspace between Nar Shaddah and here listening to it again and again. It wasn't very long. On it, the Jedi Master spoke about the Force in terms that were about as vague as Ben had used, talking about the Light Side and the Dark Side, the importance of calmness and the dangers of anger and aggression, how a 'Padawan' – whatever that was – should open themselves to the Living Force and allow it to flow through them and show them the way. 'A Jedi obeys the Will of the Force'.

That was all very well, and Luke was finding it easier every time he tried to reach out to that vast well-spring, that sense of... of everything, of being connected to the whole world moving around him as one. That place where time moved as fast or as slow as he needed it to, and his body was strong enough to do anything. Now he could even just about manage to do it without closing his eyes beforehand. But he could never keep it up for very long.

If only they hadn't had to leave the Smuggler's Moon in such a hurry... In the chaos that the Empire had caused clashing with Grakkus' private army, Han, Leia and Chewbacca had managed to get him out of the arena and away through the heaving crowds into the Palace. There had been only enough time to get his father's lightsaber, Ben's journal, and this one holocron from the Hutt's trophy room before they had to flee ahead of the stormtroopers who were suddenly sweeping the corridors. At the time it had seemed as though he had chosen this holocron at random, but now Luke suspected the Force had guided his hand. It made him hopeful about what he was going to find on Vrogas Vas.

Han, Leia and the others had gone their own way. There was some trouble with a woman whom Han had known in his smuggling days that needed to be sorted out, and Chewbacca had to return to the Rebellion to debrief them on everything that had happened. Luke wasn't ready to go back yet. Perhaps after this, if this temple held the secrets to becoming a Jedi...

“Anything else on the scans Artoo?” he asked the astromech. Artoo warbled a reply in the negative. “Then let's take her in.” The holocron had at least given him a rough location on the planet to start searching.

Soaring down through the cover of thick clouds, Luke found himself flying over a landscape of little islands separated by an interconnected network of rivers. Trees crowded close together and dipped their trailing branches into the water. So much water. It had been... what, a few months now since leaving Tatooine and he still wasn't used to it. Even in space where sonic showers were the norm there was still all the water you could drink, whenever you wanted it. No careful storage in the deep cellar, no waiting on the drip, drip of the vaporators because you started the morning circuit too early and the machines are still drawing the dew out of the atmosphere... People could be so _wasteful_ with water, and it mattered as little to them as... as sand!

Thick fog curled up from the rivers and lay heavy in valleys. Polewards, the land was beginning to climb up towards hills, and he turned the X-wing in that direction. The holocron had said the temple was perched on a mountain, looking down over cliffs to a view of the river-lands. Luke flew through a bank of cloud and then... there! A hint of sun, glinting off metal.

The temple was overgrown with trees and vines, not even the four tall pointed towers entirely escaping, but there was a large courtyard out in front of the building where Luke felt safe enough to set the X-wing down. An empty archway led into the temple itself, and a set of wide steps left the courtyard from the other side and trailed down into the forest. There was a bite to the air after the climate-controlled cockpit of the fighter – which Luke tended to keep on the high setting anyway – but his flight-suit protected him from the worst of it. His breath misted out, losing itself in the thin fog that persisted even at this height.

“I guess we're here Artoo,” Luke said, as the droid lowered himself down from the X-wing. “Not that it looks like much just yet.”

There was a dead, deserted feeling about the temple, as though it had been many years since the last living being had walked here. The archway seemed to gape like a mouth. Luke took a deep breath in and out, then closed his eyes and focused on the Force. As gradual as sand shifting on a dune, awareness filled his senses. All around him the forest was alive, alive and wild, teeming with birds and predators and prey. But the temple... the temple was calm and... deep? Not bad, exactly, but not really safe either. If felt as though if he went inside, it would be easy to get lost in there.

It didn't feel like the Dark Side. It was nothing like Vader, who had been colder than the desert at night, and as furious as a krayt-dragon. Looking at him through the Force was like looking at one of the Hutts' pit-beasts, something deadly, barely contained and not in the least tame. This was like a dark sky hidden by clouds. You knew there were stars, but they couldn't be seen from where you stood.

Opening his eyes, he took the first steps inside.

Very quickly darkness enveloped him. There was a feeling in the air of a large space around him, but there were no windows, and whatever light source had once been here was long dead. The standard X-wing flight suit came equipped with a flashlight attached to the front however, and as he flicked it on the beam lit up the dust in the air and revealed that he was standing at the foot of a wide set of stairs. There was a statue in front of him, broken in half and quite worn, but the outstretched lightsaber it held at guard in its remaining hand was still plain to see.

It hit him then all of a sudden, the weight of loss. Before he was born there had been hundreds of Jedi all across the galaxy, probably more, and hundreds of places just like this. Now with Ben gone he was the only one left, and he wasn't even a real Jedi at all. He didn't really know anything about them. There was nothing on the holonet, nothing written down, and the only things that remained were memories in the heads of people too frightened of monsters like Darth Vader to speak them out loud, or whatever was locked up in the 'collections' of creatures like Grakkus.

From the looks of it though, this temple had been out of use a lot longer than those few decades. But from what Luke had been able to make out from Ben's journal, the Old Jedi Order had based themselves out of the temple on Coruscant, and these places had been something like... cultural sites and places that students would go to train. Jedi Trials had been mentioned.

Hopefully he could find something here that would help him.

\----

The Jedi temple was a confusing place. Luke had spent the past few days exploring it, but it was a maze inside, and every time he tried to go deeper within, towards the sense of heavy calm in the Force, he found himself getting turned around, often ending up back by the entrance stairs. He had at least managed to find the old living quarters, which was where he had been spending his nights in front of a fire set from fallen wood he had gathered in the forest outside. It made it warm enough to sleep curled up next to it, Artoo keeping watch. It would have been warmer to wear his flight-suit all the time rather than the clothes Han had lent him, but it was starting to stink from so much time spent in hyperspace. There were also bathing pools there, run-off from a diverted mountain stream that cascaded down in a waterfall from an opening high above. If there had ever been a mechanism to heat it though, that had long-since died, and it was freezing. Luke had found that out the hard way.

At the moment he was trying to meditate. Master Wo's holocron had said that doing so was vital to touching the Force and becoming attuned to its will, as well as a way of opening yourself up to anything it might be trying to tell you. It was harder than it sounded. Every time Luke felt himself slipping into an awareness of the Force his nose would start to itch, or his stomach would growl, or he would shiver because despite the fire this planet was still damp and _cold._ It was as though the Force was dancing just out of his reach, daring him to come catch it. Nor had he heard anything from Ben's familiar voice echoing in the back of his mind. Maybe that really _had_ been a hallucination. Or maybe Ben thought he was managing fine on his own, despite evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps this was enough meditating for right now. Luke stood up, stretching, and sighed. This trip was proving to be a lot less productive than he had hoped. At least no-one was shooting at him, or trying to steal his lightsaber, or enslaving him this time.

There was something coming. Whether it was the Force, or just his ears picking up something on the edge of his hearing Luke didn't know, but as he stretched out his senses it became more and more obvious. Ship engines, heading his way. Well there was no way _that _could be anything good! He'd seen for himself that no-one came to this planet, and now the moment _he_ got here he had company? Why oh why had he started thinking that things were quiet!__

__The X-wing was still out in the courtyard, completely unprotected, and there was no way to get to it and move it in time now. By the sound of it, whatever was coming was around about the size of the _Millennium Falcon_ ; certainly not the scream of a TIE fighter, but that didn't rule out an Imperial shuttle, or a bounty hunter like Fett. Fett had managed to track him down on Tatooine even though he hadn't told _anyone_ he was going back there. Was it such a stretch to think they could track him here? From the sounds of it, the bounty on his head was a big one._ _

__On the other hand, Luke had an advantage that whoever this was didn't. He knew this building – or at least sort of knew it – and the stranger or strangers did not. It was confusing enough in here for someone who could touch the Force, and it had to be worse for someone who couldn't. He could lose them in the maze of corridors, and then... well then it would depend on who they were and what they wanted._ _

__There was a balcony area nearby that looked down over the entrance hall. Luke made his way there stealthily and crouched behind the balustrade waiting for some sign of the stranger. There was no guarantee they would have a light that he could see; they might have low-light vision goggles for all he knew. Bounty hunters were generally prepared for most things. You heard a lot of stories about bounty hunters on Tatooine, mostly tall tales, but with enough truth in them that he wasn't about to underestimate whoever walked through that door._ _

__What he was _not_ expecting was for that person to do so shouting._ _

__“Hello! Unknown pilot! I know you're in here somewhere; that's your X-wing out in the courtyard, right? Hey, you've not fallen into a pit trap or something have you?”_ _

__The voice was female, but that was about all Luke could tell from it. She didn't have any particular accent, nothing that would have screamed out either Core Worlder or Outer Rim 'lowlife'. Peering through the pillars of the balustrade, he could see her standing by the entrance, hands on hips, backlit by some kind of big diffused-light emitter she had put down behind her. She was wearing a flight cap with goggles pushed up over it and a short-sleeved synth-leather jacket. It looked like there might be some sort of linear tattoo on her right arm, but he couldn't make it out at this distance._ _

__“Kriff, it's dark in here isn't it?” she called out, looking around. “I sure hope you haven't fallen down some stairs somewhere and broken your neck.”_ _

__She really wasn't acting like a bounty hunter. If she was one, she'd be the strangest Luke had ever heard of. But this could all still be some sort of trick. He started to close his eyes and reach for the Force, then opened them again. He was supposed to be trying to learn how to do this with his eyes _open,_ kriff it! He could do this! The Force was all around him, he _knew_ this, all he had to do was touch it and it would tell him what he needed to know._ _

__Gradually he could feel himself sliding into the Force, or was he opening up to it? Either way, he could see her now, a steady and determined presence. If he looked closer, close enough to really see her... he was getting flashes of _something._ Not thoughts, exactly, not words, more like feelings. She had come here seeking a specific goal, but she wasn't looking to do violence. Luke didn't sense that she meant him any harm. There were secrets there, things buried under the surface, but that was only natural. Everyone had secrets._ _

__It seemed like at the moment, he could trust her. He stood up._ _

__“Up here,” he cried out, waving. She turned to look at him. “Sorry, I was worried you were with the Empire. Listen, I'll come down to meet you. It's easy to get lost in here.”_ _

__Luke made his way back through the living quarters and down the twisting set of ramps and corridors that led to the hall, Artoo following him, bleeping in curiosity. By the time he reached the stranger, she had already set up several more of the light emitters, illuminating the room almost all the way to the ceiling. She stood up when she saw him, wiping dust off of her hands on her pants._ _

__“Nice to meet you, kid,” she said. “Name's Aphra. I'm an archaeologist.”_ _

__“Explains the emitters,” Luke replied. And at least that made it a bit more clear what she was doing here. There was a chance that this could just be one big coincidence. “I'm Luke.”_ _

__“Here scouting for the Rebellion?” Aphra asked. Luke tensed, and she laughed. “Relax, that's a T-65 model X-wing you've got parked outside, and there's not too many of those kicking around the galaxy.”_ _

__“Not going to turn me over to the Empire? I hear they've got a pretty nice bounty out on rebels these days.”_ _

__“Yeah, and by now there's a pretty nice bounty out on me,” Aphra replied. “Seeing as by now they know I led the crew that stole a _really_ big shipment of credits from them. That's one of the reasons I'm out here, actually. Nice and out of the way. Somewhere to lie low until the heat dies down. So if you don't turn _me_ in, I'll return the favour.”_ _

__“How did you even know about this place anyway?”_ _

__Aphra shrugged. “Smugglers know a lot of things.”_ _

__“I thought you said you were an archaeologist?”_ _

__Aphra smiled. “Sometimes people aren't too pleased when you dig up a certain thing that they think belongs to them.”_ _

__“You know, you remind me a lot of someone I know,” Luke said._ _

__“Someone you like, I hope,” Aphra replied._ _

__“Heh, yeah.” He missed Han already, missed Leia just as much, and it had only been a week since he had seen them last. But that had been very brief, and they had been running for their lives at the time, so it barely counted. Soon though. Soon he would see his friends again, when he was finally able to call himself a Jedi._ _

__“I've told you why _I'm_ here,” Aphra said. “Any chance you might be able to make my life easier for me? Seen anything interesting while you've been here scouting? Or should I be finding some other place to hide, if the Rebellion is coming here to set up a base?”_ _

__“I've spent most of my time in the temple, but like I said, it's easy to get turned around. I wouldn't be in a hurry to recommend it for military use.”_ _

__“So I should be safe enough.” Aphra smiled. “You know, I hadn't realised that this was an old Jedi temple. My sources seem to have left out that little detail. Most of the stuff you can find in places like this is useless to anyone that can't use the powers those guys had, but you can still get good money for it, from the Empire at least if none of the collectors are feeling flush.”_ _

__“There's nothing here,” Luke said quickly. Kriff, if she was just looking to stay out of the Empire's way that was one thing, but he couldn't let her _pillage_ this place! She might think there was no-one left for it to belong to, and Luke couldn't risk telling her otherwise, but... if he was going to be the last of the Jedi, that meant he had to protect what was theirs. Protect what little was left._ _

__Aphra raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said yourself you haven't managed to explore the whole place yet?”_ _

__“Yeah, because I _can't_ ,” Luke said in exasperation. “The temple won't let me!”_ _

__“Perhaps you just need the skills of an expert archaeologist to help you? Come on, I'll split the loot. It's only fair since you were here first.”_ _

__“I don't think that's a very good idea. There might be traps.”_ _

__Aphra grinned. “Aren't you at least a little curious?”_ _

__“If I refuse to come with you, you're just going to go anyway, aren't you?” Luke sighed. That didn't leave him with much of a choice. If he let Aphra wander around the temple alone, there could be a million things that could go wrong, from whatever 'trials' there might be that could only be survived with the Force, to the chance she might find something he needed and make off with it._ _

__“Yup.”_ _

__“Fine.”_ _

__“Okay then! Let's go.”_ _

__“You want to do this now?” Luke asked. “It'll be night in a few hours!”_ _

__“I don't plan to do more than a preliminary survey,” Aphra explained. “I'll map and light the areas you already know, and if we have time we can think about going further in.” She shrugged. “I've got all the time in the world right now.”_ _

__Luke couldn't think of any reasonable excuse to stop her, aside from the truth. “Let's get this over with.”_ _


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aphra wonders who the heck this Skywalker kid is, the Inquisitor arrives, and we travel to Flashback City, population SPECTRE 1 through 6.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has kudosed and commented so far. It's great to hear that people are enjoying this. Feedback and constructive criticism is always welcome.

**0 ABY, Temple Ruins, Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim**

Aphra wasn't sure what she had been expecting from the pilot who blew up the Death Star, but it wasn't this kid. He was practically still a teenager, and there was this innocent quality to him that a person really shouldn't still have after killing several hundred thousand people, even indirectly. After seeing the farm where this Luke Skywalker had grown up, where his family had been executed, she'd been expecting... well someone a bit more jaded. A bit more like herself – an Outer Rim criminal, with all that entailed. He seemed far too trusting to have grown up on a Hutt dustball like Tatooine. He'd barely questioned why she was here, just accepted everything she said at face value. If this was the sort of person the Rebels were employing it was a wonder every second one of them wasn't a spy by now.

And there was this temple. She didn't know all that much about Force stuff; she'd only been a child when the Jedi Order was destroyed. She remembered the stories, if hazily, watered down as they must have been for a little kid. She knew they had been able to do incredible things – and horrible things, which was why they had had to be destroyed – and she had seen what Vader could do with the Force, although he wasn't a Jedi. He was... something else, although it wasn't the sort of thing you just came out and asked the guy. A Sith Lord, said the rumours. He was the Emperor’s enforcer, had led hundreds of campaigns across the galaxy without ever having any official fixed position within the ranks, and he was involved with the Inquisitorius somehow at the high levels. Even if the rest of it hadn’t been the case, no-one wanted to pry too much into ISB business, not even the hungriest rumour-monger. This temple had belonged to the Jedi once, and she suspected Skywalker was here looking for more than just a place for a new Rebel base.

What had Vader said on Tatooine? He'd probably thought she couldn't hear him, but that building had been small, and his vocoder echoed. 'The boy is strong in the Force'? That meant maybe he would be able to get past whatever kind of protections the Jedi had put on this place and find something that would... what? Teach him how to use those powers too?

She still didn't really know what the Force _was_. The way Vader talked about it, when he said anything at all, it sounded more like a religion. If so, the Jedi were... a different sect? If it weren't for the fact that this would make Skywalker, and hence the Rebellion, stronger, Aphra wouldn't have cared about any of this. But should she stop him? Whatever happened, the kid wasn't about to suddenly become able to defeat Darth Vader, so when he finally showed up to capture him and his Rebel friends, it wouldn't matter what Luke might or might not have learned about Jedi. And Vader had told her explicitly to tail the kid, and that would be difficult if he saw her as an enemy.

So all in all, it was probably better that she kept on playing the part of scoundrel archaeologist – mostly true – and pretended she was only interested in the relics she might find. The droids could stay in shut-down on the Ark Angel, and they could all remain good friends.

\----

The TIE/ln was not really designed to be piloted in atmosphere, and was prone to drag and turbulence against its wide wing surfaces, but if you knew what you were doing it was perfectly safe. In some ways it would be easier to take the _Starfall’s_ shuttle when the Twelfth Brother wanted to land on a planet, but all things considered he preferred the TIE’s maneuverability. You didn’t want to be stuck in a shuttle when Rebels, pirates or smugglers came gunning for you. 

Even skimming the cloud-cover the Twelfth Brother could sense that this planet was teeming with the Force. Of course it would be, because Jedi didn't build their temples just anywhere. It was a sure sign that the information he had been given was right, and that there was work here for the Inquisitorius. He could feel the location of the temple as well, a deep, still well that could be hiding all sorts of dangers. Dangers that he was well prepared for. Dangers that would be nothing to him. 

Well, let’s not get overconfident, he told himself. That was a sure way to end up with another Inquisitor’s lightsaber buried in your back, if you didn’t fall victim to habitual Imperial inter-service and inter-rank plotting first. Things that looked easy often weren’t. 

Normally the vacuum of space meant that there was nothing to carry the scream of the TIE’s twin ion engines, but right now they were deafening. Perhaps that was why he didn’t hear the warning beep of an incoming transmission from one of the probe droids at first, at least not until he had nearly reached the temple. The droid had been sent ahead to confirm and scout the location, and as the Twelfth Brother brought up its scans on his screen, he appreciated that caution. 

There were already two ships parked in the temple courtyard. One was a typical smuggler’s junker, although certainly faster and nastier than it looked, and the other… the other was an X-wing. Rebels. Here. How, or more importantly, why? There had been vague rumours that a man wielding a lightsaber had been seen on the Death Star in the company of known rebels in the weeks before its destruction, but nothing concrete, and besides, it was equally said that Lord Vader had killed him. But could the Rebellion have found some Force sensitives that the Inquisition had missed - from Hutt space, or the remoter parts of the Outer Rim - and be considering training them? There were enough former senators of the Old Republic amongst their ranks to have some memories of the Jedi. 

It seemed he would be doing more here than just destroying a few artefacts. 

Unfortunately his delay in responding to the droid’s signal meant that he was almost certainly close enough for them to hear his TIE’s approach. They would be expecting him. Well, so what? Any Inquisitor was more than a match for a few rebels, even if they included some untrained Force-sensitives. The Twelfth Brother set his TIE down in a forest clearing half a klick away from the temple. There was more than one way to skin a loth-cat, and that building had other entrances than just the main door. He would approach stealthily and hope to avoid any ambush they might have set up. 

Before long, he was underneath the temple walls, looking up towards the empty, open windows high above. One Force-assisted leap later, his hands found purchase on the sill, and the Twelfth Brother easily clambered up into the room beyond. The embers of a fire still smouldered on the floor, with a pile of blankets tossed in a heap nearby. Square stone beds were arranged along both walls, but none appeared to be in use. Someone had been sleeping here, he could sense it, someone strong in the Force but completely unshielded. That was the only way they could have left so great a trace of their presence behind. 

So where were they now? He called on the Dark Side, feeling it fill his veins like fire. It was always present, he never really stopped touching it, but when he pulled it into him like this it felt as though he had the strength to do anything. He looked outwards. 

It was like looking at the sun. It seemed impossible that he could have missed this… this… _supernova_ of pure, wild Force energy, this warm ball of fire shining amidst the dim campfires of the flora and fauna outside. When had he ever seen something this strong before? Not his old master Kanan. Not Fulcrum - even if he hadn’t been properly trained back then he would have noticed if Fulcrum had felt like _this_. None of the other Inquisitors had this kind of presence. The only person he could think of was Darth Vader himself, whose cold rage could surely have drowned even this. 

Just what exactly had the Rebellion got its hands on? 

The sheer strength of this person in the Force actually made it harder to pinpoint their location. He felt that he could roughly judge the direction, but any more than that… But it was a start. And clearly he had to do _something._ If this Force-sensitive could be captured or convinced to come with him back to Mustafar… 

But they were almost certainly a rebel, and so they wouldn’t understand the importance of being shown how to use the Force in the right way. So he would have to kill them. It was a pity and a waste, but there it was. The Twelfth Brother had given up wishful thinking when he had given up his old name. 

He followed the pull of the Force down a corridor and out onto a narrow balcony looking down into what must be the entrance hall. There were two people crouched behind the wreckage of a broken Jedi statue, pointing blasters at the door. Only two? This would be easier than he’d thought. One was a woman dressed a lot like the smugglers he’d known over the years, the other a man about his age. He was the one who burned in the Force. 

The Twelfth Brother leapt, using the Dark Side to break his fall. He landed on the stairs behind the pair, drawing his lightsaber and igniting it. They spun around, swearing. 

“That’s an Inquisitor!” the smuggler said, already firing. The Brother deflected the shots easily. She wasn’t the threat here. 

“A what?” the other said. 

Definitely not from an Imperial world. 

“I’m not necessarily here to harm you,” the Brother told them. “If you don’t know what an Inquisitor does, then I’ll explain. We locate Force-sensitive children in Imperial Space, and we take them to Mustafar to be trained in the ways of the Force. It’s as simple as that. We seem to have missed out on you, though. But it’s not too late. There’s still time for you to join us. To learn how to use the powers you must know you have.”

For a moment, the rebel hesitated. The Twelfth Brother sensed confusion within him, and a great pain. “I thought the Empire killed all the Jedi,” he said. 

“We did,” the Brother replied. “Inquisitors are _not_ Jedi. The Jedi are not what you’ve been told. The Rebellion has lied to you.” 

“My father was a Jedi,” the rebel replied, and flicked aside his jacket to reveal the lightsaber hidden beneath it. “And so am I.”

“ _Karabas,_ ” the Brother swore. This was… this was really bad. Although this padawan clearly wasn’t trained, he didn’t hold the saber like someone who had never used one before. _Someone_ had given it to him. His father? Was he still alive? Even one live Jedi was capable of spreading their poison far and wide. 

He gathered himself. This didn’t have to be a disaster. “If he had a son, then clearly your father wasn’t a very good Jedi,” he said. “And that’s a _good_ thing. The Jedi...” 

“My father was a great man,” the rebel snapped, drawing his lightsaber and igniting the blue blade. “Before Darth Vader betrayed and killed him!” 

The surge of anger from the padawan should have made him pleased, but the rebel wasn’t concentrating enough to draw on the Force at all, let alone the Dark Side. And what he had said… Well. That was that, then. If this guy had a vendetta against Lord Vader, then he would never accept being taught by him. It was an essential part of training, and although the Brother thought that rage might be channelled to great effect, if he couldn’t quiet it and _listen_ long enough to learn something then he would just end up dead. If he even got that far. 

No. Maybe he just wasn’t persuasive enough, but he couldn’t see any way of getting the rebel to come with him. So it would be death then. 

Which was around the time the astromech droid shot him in the back. 

\---- 

**4 BBY - Lothal, Lothal Sector, Outer Rim**

The only good thing about their rush to leave Lothal was that it didn’t give Ezra time to _think_. They had to keep going, keep fighting, keep trying, find a way to save both themselves and the people of this planet. The Empire wasn’t exactly above killing their own - Minister Tua’s death proved that much - and Lothal was only Imperial by default. And with Moff Tarkin behind this… Ezra thought he knew the man well enough from his ‘object example’ that was Tarkintown to be sure that he wouldn’t hesitate to use the excuse they had manufactured - ruthless Rebel terrorists murdering a ‘beloved’ public official - to kill anyone and everyone they wanted to. 

They had to get off planet. It was the only way that anyone here would be safe. If he focused enough on that fact, it was almost enough to forget that his home was burning behind him, the last remaining link to his parents nothing more than ashes. Everything he had, every last little reminder, was gone. 

Perhaps that was where it had started. That anger. Well of course he was angry, who wouldn’t be? No-one could see what the bucketheads were capable of and not be furious. If Ezra hadn’t been angry all his life since his mother and father had been taken away, he wouldn’t have spent the last few years before meeting the crew of the Ghost running around Central City causing trouble wherever he could. Wouldn’t have met Kanan in the first place. Wouldn’t have discovered that the uncanny instincts that sometimes pricked at him were something called the Force. Wouldn’t have learned how to use it. It was all very well Kanan warning him to set those feelings aside, but he could barely remember a time that he hadn’t felt this way. Deep down. He could hide it, sure, and he often did, because for so long he couldn’t _do_ anything about it. It was easier to pretend there was nothing wrong. But that’s all it was; pretending. So he didn’t find it too hard to push his anger far away whenever he touched the Force, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there somewhere. 

At the time, Kanan’s idea to steal a shuttle in the factory district had seemed to be their only real chance of escape and the best plan they had. The problem was, that wasn’t a coincidence. It was all by design. A trap. Finding the portable shield generators, maybe that hadn’t been intended by the Imperials, but that didn’t matter much when the jaws of the Empire’s might were closing around them. The first sign that something was wrong was the chill. It was like all the air had been sucked away into the great blackness of open, empty space, taking him with it, tearing his lungs from his throat and making his blood ripple and boil. Then silence, spreading in a tidal wave. All of it coming from just one spot. 

Kanan had felt it too. Stiffened beside him, turned slowly, lightsabre springing into his hand. There was a gap between the huge doors leading into the Sienar warehouse. Someone standing there, a figure in black, just a silhouette in a shaft of moonlight coming from some skylight far overhead. Then the snap and hiss of a lightsaber igniting, and a thin line of red blossomed in the figure’s hand. It felt like the bottom of Ezra’s stomach had fallen out. 

Another Inquisitor? There _was_ more than one? 

As the Inquisitor stepped forward, breathing in harsh, regulated rasping, the squad of Stormtroopers spreading out behind it was honestly the least of their worries. Acting as one, following the prompting of the faint training bond between them, Ezra ignited his lightsaber in time with Kanan, dropping into guard position just as he’d been taught. In that moment, it didn’t seem like much use at all. 

The air hummed as saber met saber. The new Inquisitor seemed unbelievably strong, pressing down on Kanan with only a single-handed grip against all the force of a double-handed defence. Then a wave of the Force snapped out, throwing he and Ezra backwards before either of them could react. Ezra landed hard, rolled, gasping for breath. Kanan recovered more quickly and leapt to the attack once again. Ezra could only watch how little good it did. With dismissive ease the armoured figure had Kanan’s wrists in one hand above his head, dragging him off his feet. Sith, the Inquisitor was tall! In that crushing grip Kanan’s hands loosened and his saber clattered to the ground. Then a flick of one arm sent him flying to crash against a pile of crates, slumping, dazed. Ezra watched in horror. 

Now it was his turn. 

Again that casual push of Force energy, throwing him meters, pushing him up against the leg of one of the unfinished walkers. It closed around him like a fist. It felt familiar; it felt just like the way that last Inquisitor had used the Force. It was suffocating. There was anger in it, but a cold, impersonal anger. Ezra was afraid, and he couldn’t fight it. 

“Your Master has deceived you,” the Inquisitor said. His voice was a low, threatening rumble, distorted by the mask, “into believing you can become a Jedi.” As he spoke the invisible fist tightened, closing around Ezra’s right arm, forcing the lightsaber he held towards his own throat. He tried to resist, but the power of his muscles was nothing compared to the power of the Force. 

His throat was free, he would have had time to shout some final, defiant words, but nothing sprang to mind. Defence of Kanan? Kanan had never lied to him, he’d promised exactly what he could give. Ezra knew Kanan had never been a Jedi Master, but he’d still been a Jedi and there was still so much that he _could_ teach him. Sometimes Ezra found his lessons a little frustrating, difficult to grasp, but he had made so much progress already. But how to put all that into words? How to describe the hope Kanan had given him that he could actually _do_ something about the Empire, could actually get some revenge - real revenge - for what had happened to his parents. That he could make a difference. 

The blade of his saber crept ever closer to his neck. 

Then someone was shouting, and the coiled strength that held him vanished in an instant, letting him slide down the cold metal with enough time to get his feet under him. It was Kanan, leaping back into combat, exchanging rapid blows that seemed to do nothing to concern the Inquisitor. But with that mask he wore, it was impossible to read him, impossible to tell if he was even breaking a sweat. Reaching out to the Force was no help; there was nothing but a wall where the man was, a wall made of cold fire and rage. 

Ezra had to do something. He was operating now on instinct and the Force, letting it flow through him, guide him as he joined the fray. Yet after a few smooth parrys from their enemy he was sent flying yet again. The Force was protecting him from feeling the results of all those impacts, but it could only do so much. 

Kanan was locked saber to saber with the Inquisitor. The blades crackled and buzzed against one another. Then the masked man did something complicated with his lightsaber, flicked it in a great whirling arc that broke it away from Kanan’s and… 

It happened so fast. One moment Kanan was standing defiant, the next he was on the floor, clutching his arm or… the stump where his arm had been. 

Things became… less clear after that. Ezra’s memory played tricks on him - he knew he had screamed, he knew he had tried to attack, but… There had been an explosion, the AT-ST walkers coming crashing down in front of them in a shower of flames and sparks, forcing the Inquisitor to jump away to avoid it. Zeb had run forwards, grabbed Kanan and heaved him over his shoulder, stumbling under the weight as he turned back towards the shuttle. Sabine had called out to Ezra, urged him on, but suddenly a red lightsaber was blocking the way and there was nowhere for him to turn. 

It hadn’t been abandonment. Even after everything that had happened… afterwards… Ezra refused to see it as that. It had been survival, the only option. Hera had made the call, and she had taken off, blaster bolts filling the air behind the shuttle as it accelerated skywards. 

And Ezra had been left, alone, expecting death. 

Only it turned out he was more useful to the Empire alive. 

\---- 

**4 BBY - Imperial Shuttle _Mistraal,_ Lothal System, Outer Rim**

Sabine opened her eyes. Her head was spinning. What had she been doing? Everything seemed fuzzy. What was the last thing she remembered? The Sienar factory… they had found the shuttle, and picked up some portable shield generators to boot, then... there had been a fight. Imperials! 

She tried to sit up, but her muscles groaned in protest. She felt like she had been kicked in the ribs by a nerf. There had been someone new commanding the troops, she remembered. It was starting to come back to her. A tall figure in black armour, masked. He’d had a lightsaber, like the Inquisitor. She had tried to shoot him and… well that explained why she felt so terrible. 

Someone was making noises of pain nearby. Short gasps, breathing fast. Sabine turned her head. 

Kanan was slumped against the far wall, Hera sitting next to him with a med-kit spread out on the bench beside her. His face was screwed up in agony as Hera did something to… to the place where his arm _wasn’t. Karabas._ She had seen it happen, but perhaps she hadn’t wanted to remember. It all seemed so terrible. Everything had gone so _wrong._ They should have escaped, they should have rubbed the bucketheads’ noses in their own incompetence like they always did, no-one should have gotten _hurt…_

Zeb saw that she was awake, and came over to help her up, his big paws gently sliding her helmet off, leaving her hair mussed. “You okay?” he asked her softly. 

“Yeah, I’ll live.” She looked around, checking to see if everyone else had made it away in one piece. Zeb and Hera were fine, there was Chopper lurking in the corner, but… “Where’s Ezra?” 

Everyone suddenly looked a lot more uncomfortable. 

“We had to leave,” Hera said eventually, her voice unsteady. “It was that, or we all died.” 

“You mean… we left Ezra back there!” Sabine shot to her feet, quickly regretting it as her vision went grey around the edges, and she felt herself sway as her head span with dizziness. Zeb steadied her. His ears were laid flat against his skull. He looked about as happy as she felt. “No, we have to go back for him!” 

“We _will_ ,” Kanan said through gritted teeth. “I’m not leaving him with that _thing._ ” 

“Yeah, what was that?” Sabine asked. “Another Inquisitor?” 

“No. Something… worse. A Sith Lord. The ancient enemy of the Jedi. If he has Ezra…” 

“We _will_ go back for him,” Hera said. “But we need to know more first. That’s why we’re not leaving Lothal. Not yet.” 

“So where _are_ we going?” Sabine asked. 

“To someone who is sneaky and underhand enough to get us the information we need.” 

Kanan groaned, although not from pain this time. “Calrissian.” 

\---- 

**4 BBY - Imperial Command Centre, Lothal, Lothal Sector, Outer Rim**

Ezra had expected to be killed, not taken captive. The moment the shuttle had taken off he had been surrounded by stormtroopers, the Inquisitor looming at their head. But instead of being shot he had been stunned, and the next he knew of it he was waking up in a prison cell. He wasn’t sure exactly how long they had left him there. They didn’t bother to feed him, but there was a sink he could drink from, and a toilet, and they had cuffed his arms in front of him. 

After some time, a couple of bucketheads appeared, and he was escorted along a bunch of bland, grey, Imperial corridors and shoved inside an office which contained two familiar faces. One was Agent Kallus. The other was the blank mask of the new Inquisitor. He was an oppressive, heavy presence in the Force, but he didn’t seem to be projecting that same cold and rage as he had during their fight. The noise of his respirator was very loud though, echoing throughout the room. It was so pervasive it was almost as if he could feel it under his skin, inside his head. 

“So,” Kallus said, sounding far too pleased with himself. “The rebel Ezra Bridger, also known as Specter Six.” He smiled at Ezra’s expression. “You see we _do_ know a little something about your band of terrorists.” 

“We’re not terrorists,” Ezra replied, not able to stop himself from protesting. Even despite his fear of the Inquisitor, wordless and menacing. “We’re doing what we can to protect the people of Lothal from _you._ ” 

“If it wasn’t for rebels like yourself, there would be no need for harsh measures,” Agent Kallus replied. “Obedience in return for protection. Is that so very much to ask?” 

“Your protection isn’t worth very much. Just look at Tarkintown!” 

Kallus shrugged. “Non-humans,” he said dismissively. “And trouble-makers. Little better than menaces like yourself. Generosity and mercy are only offered to those deserving of it.” 

“I’m guessing that doesn’t include me,” Ezra said. Had they just wanted to gloat before they killed him? Or was this all working up to something else? 

“It could be, if you tell us the location of your friends, and of the Rebel Fleet in this sector,” Kallus replied. 

“That’s never going to happen.” 

“You may change your mind after a little persuasion.” 

“Torturing the boy will not be necessary.” The Inquisitor spoke at last. Menace dripped from every word. “The others will come for him. Their compassion is their weakness.” 

“No, they won’t,” Ezra said quickly. He realised he had broken out in a cold sweat. _Karabas_ , how was he so _terrifying?_ “They know they’d be walking into a trap.” 

“No, _that_ has already happened,” Agent Kallus told him. “The moment they boarded that shuttle. But as it happens, we don’t actually _want_ them to come for you. It’s much better for us that they run home to the Fleet, and lead us right to the _real_ prize.” 

“No…” 

“Of course, as long as you’re still alive, they won’t do that,” Kallus continued. “So we will have to make it clear that you are dead. A public execution should do nicely, don’t you think?” 

Ezra couldn’t say anything. They were going to kill him, and broadcast it all over the holonet. Kanan, Hera, Sabine, Zeb… they would all be forced to watch it. _Everyone_ would. All of Lothal. They would be more afraid of the Empire than ever. They would lose what little hope they had been able to give them after the tower broadcast. And he was powerless to stop it. 

He looked away. As he did so, his gaze fell on the Inquisitor’s belt, and the lightsabers hanging there. Two… one of them was his own! If he could only get it, if he used the Force… If he attacked them here and now, even if he couldn’t kill either of them, maybe they would be forced to kill him and then… 

Even if he died, here, now, it wouldn’t be the same as a public execution. He could spare his friends, his _family_ , that pain at least. 

He reached out with the Force, reached out with his anger and his desperation towards the small clip where his saber hung and _pulled…_

A hand in a leather glove reached out and pinned the weapon in place. The dark red lenses fixed their gaze upon him and Ezra shivered under that inhuman stare. “A valiant attempt,” the harsh baritone said, in a way that might have been mocking. “He has potential. It appears the Jedi has not made him useless.” 

Agent Kallus nodded. “I shall see that he is transferred to your ship personally, Lord Vader. Once the execution has been recorded, of course.” 

Ezra hadn’t believe it was possible to feel any worse, but he found that he was wrong. They were going to fake his death. And afterwards… He had no idea what this ‘Vader’ had planned for him, but he was sure he wasn’t going to enjoy it. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Aphra continues to be annoyed by Luke's life choices, and Luke has the vague stirrings of a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly shorter chapter this time, because the next scene would have made it way too long; there's a lot of talking. But don't worry, we'll get to that. ;)
> 
> I imagine the Imperial Propaganda machine would have been in overdrive at the start of Palpatine's reign, including tarnishing the reputation of the Jedi as much as possible. Said propaganda - in this fic - was most successful and wide-spread on Core worlds. Jedi didn't go out to the Outer Rim as often, and weren't as well known there; they remained legends, and people were pretty ambivalent about them anyway. 
> 
> Also, I bet they're really great at brainwashing on Mustafar, huh...

**0 ABY - Temple Ruins, Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim**

The moment Aphra saw the Inquisitor, she knew she had to kill him. It was far too much of a coincidence to think that he had shown up on this planet accidentally at the exact same time that Luke Skywalker, hero of the Rebel Alliance, was here, and that meant that someone had sent him. Vader had told her there were others after Skywalker, that Tagge had reassigned the Empire’s search for the boy to someone else. It was reasonable to assume that that someone would have the authority to requisition an Inquisitor, particularly if they also knew Skywalker was able to use the Force. 

The only thing that could reliably kill a Jedi was another Force-user, after all - although the kid wasn’t really a Jedi. That’s why the Inquisitorius existed in the first place. 

But in this case there was only one Force-user that was allowed to have Skywalker, and that was Lord Vader. Aphra was well aware this was probably going to get her killed, but she had to stop him from getting his hands on the prize. If she failed… then Vader’s plans failed. She had better _hope_ she was dead if that happened. 

The red lightsaber deflected the shots from her blaster with infuriating ease. Aphra swore under her breath. Then the Inquisitor started to speak. Started to _negotiate._ He was making Skywalker an offer. Not one the boy would take, not under normal circumstances - she hadn’t known him for long but that much was already obvious - but Force-users could get inside your head, play with your brain. Surely Skywalker would notice, surely _he_ of all beings would be able to resist but… She needn’t have worried. 

“My father was a Jedi,” the boy said, defiantly, drawing… his own lightsaber. “And so am I.” 

Kriff it! So he already knew what he was, or what he was capable of becoming. He already knew the kind of weapon the Rebellion could turn him into. Even setting aside what he had done in the past, Aphra could only imagine the sort of danger he could become if he continued on down this path. A Jedi could kill an army. The Jedi generals of the Clone Wars had been ruthless, without mercy, and utterly deadly. The Old Republic had dressed this up nicely with their propaganda when the Jedi Order benefited them. It had taken the Empire to reveal the unadorned truth behind the lies, and Darth Vader to eliminate the threat to the New Order. 

Of course, the Empire had its own propaganda, and Aphra was smart enough not to believe _everything_ they claimed was true, but enough of it meshed with what little she remembered from the stories of her early childhood to make sense. 

She was ambivalent about the Empire, but at least as a regime it knew how to be strong. She had nothing but contempt for the weakness of the Old Republic. 

Skywalker and the Inquisitor were facing off, neither yet seeming willing to be the first to attack. Then the Inquisitor spoke again. “If he had a son, then clearly your father wasn’t a very good Jedi,” he said. “And that’s a _good_ thing.”

_Aphra_ could have told him this was the wrong tack to take, and she wasn’t exactly known for her diplomacy. As might have been expected, Skywalker got angry. 

“My father was a great man,” he snapped. “Before Darth Vader betrayed and killed him!” 

Huh. Interesting. Aphra filed that piece of information away for later. She wasn't surprised by it; Vader was well known as a Jedi killer, although she wasn't sure how the concept of a betrayal fit into that. She couldn't imagine Vader, so devoted to his religion, having anything to do with the opposing cult of the Jedi. Something told her it was sure to have something to do with the bigger picture of Vader’s plans that she was still putting together. She raised her blaster again, hoping to take advantage of the distraction Skywalker posed to get a shot off at the Inquisitor. But before she could fire, there was the snap of an electrical discharge, and the Inquisitor collapsed. On the step behind him was Skywalker’s astromech droid, shock probe extended, beeping proudly. 

_Are we sure that thing’s not related to BT-1?_ she asked herself. It was certainly old enough to have some pretty non-standard code. Pre-Clone Wars, at least.

Well, that made taking care of this problem a lot easier. She strode forwards, intending to take a point-blank shot at the Inquisitor’s head, only for Skywalker to step in her way. He stared her down, insisting on keeping their enemy alive. And alright, maybe he did have a point about getting information out of him first, but honestly it would be safer for her own mission if they didn’t talk. The Inquisitor might not know that she was connected to Vader, but she couldn’t take the chance that he would reveal something that would compromise this tenuous connection. 

But if she killed him, now, that would be certain to drive Skywalker away. 

There was only one thing to do. She would have to hope that Lord Vader’s _direct_ authority trumped the orders of some new and temporary master. She would have to make a call. 

She gave in. “Fine. If you don’t have the good sense nature gave a gundark, that’s your problem. I’ll look in my ship, see what I’ve got that we can use to tie him up before he comes to.” And it would give her some time in private there.

Going out to the _Ark Angel_ , Aphra immediately went to the comms and sent out a hail on Vader’s personal frequency. _Please_ let him be available to answer it. She would pray to whatever the Force was if that would help. But it turned out luck, or the Force, was on her side. The channel opened. 

“Lord Vader,” Aphra said, as the holoform of that impenetrable mask flickered into being. “We have a bit of a complication.”

“For your sake Aphra, I hope nothing has happened to the boy.”

“Not a scratch,” she replied. “But not for want of someone trying. An Inquisitor turned up.”

Even from millions of miles away, she could almost feel the temperature dropping. Perhaps she was simply getting used to reading his moods, especially his temper, which was on a hair-trigger as it was. 

“I trust they have been eliminated,” Vader said, or rather practically growled. Oh yes, _very_ angry. 

“Skywalker’s droid stunned him. Then the kid wouldn’t even _let_ me kill him. So no. Unfortunately the Inquisitor is very much alive, and I can’t do anything about that without losing our target’s trust. I especially can’t guarantee what this guy might or might not say when he wakes up.”

Vader barely hesitated. “I am sending you my personal authorisation code. Ensure that the Inquisitor receives it, and promise him that if he acts against either of you in _any_ way, he will have to deal with _me_.”

“Great,” Aphra said, feeling a lot more relaxed. “Problem solved, unless this guy is a lot crazier than he seemed.”

Vader terminated the connection without another word. Left behind on the screen, a long alphanumeric code blinked steadily. Aphra copied it over to her data-pad, erasing the original afterwards. Tempting as it might be, she knew Vader wouldn’t let her keep this any longer than she needed to have it. 

Then she went to find the strongest cables she had. This Inquisitor wasn’t going _anywhere_ before she had a chance to talk to him. 

\----

Luke clipped his father’s lightsaber back to his belt, breathing heavily, more from emotion than exertion. “Well done Artoo,” he said, looking up to where the little astromech stood over the stunned body of the stranger, shock-probe out and still buzzing. He felt shaky all over as the adrenaline drained out of him, still on edge after what the man had said to him. Ben had warned him about the Sith, about Darth Vader and the Emperor, but he had never mentioned that there were more of them out there than just those two. He turned to Aphra, who clearly knew more than he did about these ‘Inquisitors’, but she was already striding forwards with her blaster trained on the prone body, looking determined. 

“Wait!” Luke shouted, darting forwards so that he was between the two of them. “Don’t kill him!”

“In case you didn’t notice kid, he was about to try to kill us,” she told him. “And he’s not going to be alone.”

“I know, TIEs don’t have hyperdrive,” Luke said, impatiently. “I know he must have another ship somewhere, probably in orbit. But that means we need to know what he knows. He’s our prisoner now.”

“Keeping an Inquisitor prisoner is like playing with fire - not a good idea.”

Luke didn’t say anything. He knew this wasn’t a good idea, but he wasn’t about to stand aside and let someone be shot in cold blood. It just wasn’t right. Even if he was angry with them, that wasn’t any kind of justification. After a few long seconds, Aphra rolled her eyes at him and holstered her blaster. 

“Fine. If you don’t have the good sense nature gave a gundark, that’s your problem. I’ll look in my ship, see what I’ve got that we can use to tie him up before he comes to.”

Luke relaxed. “Thank you Aphra.” 

He sat watching their prisoner while he waited for her to return. The man looked about his age, maybe a little older, with tan skin and hair dark enough to have a bluish sheen to it. He was wearing form-fitting black armour with Imperial Cogs painted onto both the shoulderpads. The lightsaber that he had drawn on them - which Luke had been quick to pick up - looked more like a blaster when it was turned off. Certainly nothing like any of the other sabers he had seen, even amongst Grakkus’ collection. It had been red, like Vader’s. And his eyes had looked to have a yellow tint, which was not exactly human-standard. 

Aphra came back after some time with an armful of hauling cable that was usually used for reeling in smaller objects in space. She looped it around the Inquisitor’s ankles and wrists, knotting it securely. “That should hold him for now,” she said. “I guess now we just wait until he wakes up.”

“What is an Inquisitor anyway?” Luke asked. 

“Where did you grow up that you don’t know that?” the smuggler asked him.

“Tatooine.”

“Well that explains a lot. Look, he said most of this already, but if you’re a kid who can do something the other kids can’t, even if it’s something small, the Empire sends you for special aptitude tests. And if you do well on _those_ … then an Inquisitor shows up. They ask all sorts of strange questions, and then they take some kids away with them, and those kids are never seen again. I guess they go off and become new Inquisitors. I did the first round of tests, but I guess I didn’t have whatever it is exactly they’re looking for.”

“And they’re all like… this one?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Aphra replied. “I’ve never met one before.”

\----

**3 BBY - Plooma, Veragi Sector, Outer Rim**

Nothing had been the same since Ezra’s death. It was his own fault. If he had been quicker, if he hadn’t forgotten so much of his training in the years he had tried to pretend that he had never been a Jedi, Kanan might have been able to protect him. He had no illusions about his ability to actually defeat a Sith Lord - he was no General Kenobi or Skywalker, he knew that much - but he might have been able to hold him off long enough… But instead he had failed, lost an arm for his troubles, and as good as sentenced Ezra to death himself. 

What right did he have to call himself a Jedi? What had he been thinking, taking on a Padawan when he had never been anything more than that himself? Had he really been arrogant enough to believe that he could teach Ezra enough to survive, when he _knew_ the dangers that were out there? 

He kept remembering that day, when his world had fallen apart. His Master telling him to run. He had fled, and he had been running ever since. The Empire had destroyed the Jedi Order and he… he hadn’t fought back. Hera had convinced him that he should do _something,_ but he had been too afraid to go as far as she wanted, do as much as she wanted. She had been the one to liaise with Fulcrum. She had been the one to insist they go to the Rebel Alliance. Kanan had… 

He had been a failure. A coward. 

Could he change that? Could he be any better than what he was, or was this all he was capable of?

That was why they were here, on Plooma. Because the Rebellion had sent them to strike a blow against the Empire. It was nothing they hadn’t done dozens of times on Lothal, and this planet was just out-of-the-way enough to have similarly green and inexperienced troops garrisoning it, despite the fact that it was home to such an important military target. It was impossible for the Empire to buy too many TIEs and that meant Sienar couldn’t build too many factories to churn them out. Factories ripe for destruction. 

“Spectre 5, have you finished setting the charges?” Hera asked over their comms. 

“Affirmative Specter 2,” Sabine replied. “Let’s blow this place.”

“Okay. Specter 2 to all operatives. Meet back at the rendezvous point. Time to leave.”

Kanan had finished his own task here some time ago, destroying the mainframe that controlled both the security and fire control systems. It would be impossible for anyone here to prevent this now, and their explosive devices would be free to wreak havok. Making his way towards the _Ghost_ , he reflected that his had been altogether too easy. There had been a low-level buzz moving through the Force ever since they arrived on this world, and as of yet he had found no cause for it. But his instincts told him that he would find out before they left. He had a bad feeling about this. 

He was just crossing a gantry above the factory floor, the complicated machinery of the starfighter assembly line laid out below him, when the tingling became a scream. He whirled around to find that he wasn’t alone. A gangly humanoid had just appeared in the doorway behind him. There was no mistaking that sleek black armour even without the Imperial cogs on the shoulderpads. An Inquisitor. He was masked, so there was no telling exactly what species he was, but the Empire usually kept their human agents for the Inner Ring and Core so the stuck-up xenophobic Imps there didn’t get _offended_ about taking orders from a non-human. 

There had been rumours that another Inquisitor had been assigned to hunt him down, so Kanan wasn’t overly surprised by this. At least he had turned up _after_ they had completed their mission, or at least were close enough to doing so that it would be impossible to find and defuse the charges before the bombs went off. 

Kanan drew his lightsaber and began backing carefully away along the gantry. The Inquisitor wasn’t blocking his escape route, so there was still a chance that this might not come to open battle. Although his new arm was a good quality prosthesis, it was less responsive through the Force than his flesh arm, and he had found it difficult to integrate it into his sense of himself that allowed him to let the Force flow through him and guide his actions in battle. If you couldn’t be sure where all of you was, you couldn’t trust yourself in the acrobatics that were necessary for saber combat. 

Still. The Inquisitor hadn’t even drawn his own lightsaber yet. He approached cautiously, hands spread apart in a pacifying gesture. This was very unlike any of the Inquisitors they had met so far. The Pau’an had been arrogant, the Fifth Brother aggressive, and even the Seventh Sister had only talked in order to taunt him. What did this one want?

“Kanan!” the Inquisitor shouted. The voice had an electronic edge from the masked helmet, but there was still something… familiar… about it. He reached out with the Force, but the Dark Side was thick around the other, too thick to penetrate. 

“SPECTRE has killed three of your _friends_ already!” Kanan replied, holding his saber at guard. “Back off, or you’ll join them.”

“Kanan, I just want to _talk_ ,” the Inquisitor said. “About the Jedi, about the Light Side… I need you to know the _truth_.”

“What are you talking about? Sith lies? The only truth I care about is that the Emperor had my friends, my _master,_ killed! That the Sith have constructed an Empire of evil, and we will do everything we can to see it brought down!”

The Inquisitor shook his head. “The Inquisitorius… the Sith… they’ve shown me what the Jedi were really like, _in their own words_. You were one of them once. You knew, even if they’d brainwashed you since birth not to see what they really were.”

Kanan rolled his eyes. This was certainly a new tack, but frankly this was absurd. What were they expecting out of this? For him to renounce the Jedi in the shock of epiphany and _join_ them? To start terrorising the galaxy? 

“The Jedi _stole children,_ Kanan. They tore them away from their parents, their families… away from everyone that _loved_ them. They turned them into emotionless killing machines, sent them out onto battlefields, onto planets full of a hundred dangers they were far too young for! You should know…”

“I _don’t_ know,” Kanan interrupted him. He’d heard enough of this nonsense. This was Imperial propaganda, plain and simple, and he’d heard more than enough of it in the years after the Empire was founded. Turn people against the Jedi Order and they were more than willing to turn in what few survivors there were. “And don’t claim you can know _anything_ about me or what I’ve been through.”

The Inquisitor’s head tilted to the side. “Do you really not know who I am?” he asked.

“Should I?”

“Haven’t you _looked_?” When Kanan said nothing, the Inquisitor reached up to touch a hidden release on his helmet and the panels slid aside to reveal…

“No.” The word fell from Kanan’s lips before he could stop it. Ezra… But it couldn’t be. He was dead, they had all _seen_ him die, cut down by the firing squad on Lothal… But it was, Ezra had grown but he hadn’t grown _that_ much. Kanan would know him anywhere. If the Dark Side hadn’t cloaked that familiar presence in the Force...

“The Jedi weren’t what you thought,” Ezra said. “They weren’t what you told me. This way… it’s not easy, but eventually I’ll be able to change things. Change the system. Make the galaxy a better place. You could do that too. Come with me, see what they’ve shown me, and I _know_ you’ll understand.”

Kanan didn’t know what answer he would have given to that. He didn’t have time to come up with one, because it was at that moment that the bombs went off. 

Fire erupted from the factory below. Shrapnel whined through the air, and one particularly large piece of shapeless metal came whirring up through the gantry between them, leaving the steel lattice in tatters and opening a gaping hole. Ezra took a step back, flames reflecting in his eyes, giving them a tint of yellow… or perhaps they had been like that before but Kanan hadn’t wanted to see it. He spat that familiar Lasat curse they had all picked up from Zeb. 

Kanan’s comms crackled. “Spectre 1!” It was Hera’s voice, screaming. “Spectre 1, where are you?”

Kanan tried to speak and found his mouth was too dry. He swallowed, his throat rough, then managed to force some words out. “On a gantry above the factory floor.”

“Don’t move,” Hera ordered. “We’ll come and get you.”

Kanan had no time to ask how; a flurry of blaster fire erupted from the hanger door at the end of the building and the _Phantom_ barrelled through the opening left behind, soaring over the raging fires towards him and making a tight mid-air turn so the rear hatch - already open - pointed his way. Kanan shook himself out of his shock and made the jump, landing lightly on the small platform. 

Left behind - _just as you left him behind before, left him to the Inquisitorius,_ Kanan told himself - Ezra turned away to make his own escape from the crumbling factory. 

Kanan made his way through the _Phantom_ to take the co-pilot’s seat next to Hera. 

“Are you okay?” she asked him. “What happened down there? Another Inquisitor?”

“I’ll tell you when we get back to the _Ghost_ ,” Kanan replied. 

\----

**0 ABY - Temple Ruins, Vrogas Vas**

Ezra - no, the _Twelfth Brother_ \- woke up. For a moment he had almost forgotten himself. That was a part of him he had left far behind. He was lying on a flat stone surface, and as soon as he tried to move, he quickly became aware that someone had tied him up like a Life-Day roast. Strong cables, and strong knots as well. Even picking at them with the Force, he couldn’t see himself working loose anytime soon. 

“Hey, Inquisitor,” someone said from right next to him. 

He turned his head. It was the smuggler from earlier. _Karabas._ He hadn’t thought to look for droids, and even if he had they weren’t easy to detect in the Force. The one who shot him had been easy to miss because of how _bright_ that padawan boy was. Overconfidence, he thought to himself. Warned yourself about that. Speaking of, said padawan wasn’t here, or at least, he wasn’t in this room right now. Good. If he waited for the right moment...

“Here, pay attention,” the smuggler said. She was holding a datapad, and as he looked back to her she held it up so he could see it. 

Oh. Oh, this was very bad. 

That was _Darth Vader’s_ authorisation code. Which meant he had just stumbled into an operation he _definitely_ didn’t have the clearance for, and had probably gone a long way towards cocking it up too. He did his best to look apologetic. 

“So here’s how it’s going to be,” the smuggler told him. “I’m Doctor Aphra, droid archaeologist, coder, smuggler, and working _directly_ for Lord Vader. The kid is Luke Skywalker, and he’s going to be leading us all the way to the main Rebel Fleet if I play my cards right. _You_ are in a kriff-load of trouble and are going to keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you. Understand?”

The Twelfth Brother nodded. He really didn’t trust himself not to say something that would dig him even deeper into this nice hole he’d made for himself. 

“So who sent you?” Aphra asked, conversationally. “Tagge? That Mon-Calamari cyborg, what’s his name, Karbin?”

“Uh, neither,” he replied nervously. “This was meant to be a standard mission. I had no idea either of you two were here before I saw your ships.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that?” Aphra asked scornfully. “A little too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“There is no coincidence, there is the Force,” the Brother replied automatically. It was a saying that held just as true for the Dark Side as the Light. 

Aphra sneered. “I suppose if you want to keep that much to yourself for now I don’t really care. It isn’t me you’ll have to deal with in the end, and you of all sentients should know what Lord Vader is like as an interrogator. All I want from you is to know that you won’t mess this up. Say nothing to the boy about any of this. Don’t touch him, don’t _think_ about touching him, don’t even go near him if you can help it. If he asks you questions, answer him, but keep the answers as short as possible. He’s Vader’s prize when this is over.”

“I get the idea. So,” he said, gesturing with his bound wrists, “are you going to let me up?”

“Of course not. The kid wants to talk to you first. Find out what you’re doing here and who you’ve brought with you. Stick with the bantha-fodder story you tried on me just now, it’ll work on him. And no Force funny-business.”

As soon as he nodded his agreement, she was on her comm. “Better come back Luke,” she said. “He’s awake.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Luke talks to Ezra, is rather taken aback by all this anti-Jedi propaganda, but gets what he wants in the end. Pity it's the exact opposite of what Aphra wants!

**0 ABY - Temple Ruins, Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim**

Luke entered the sleeping chambers to find Aphra standing guard over their prisoner, who looked a lot less intimidating tied to a bed. The young man was scowling, but not at Aphra or him, just at life in general and this situation in particular. Luke recognised that look. It was one he’d worn a lot on Tatooine when he wanted to go out with his friends and instead had to stay home to harvest water from the vaporators. The position he was trussed up in didn’t look too comfortable either, but then, he _had_ been trying to kill them. A little discomfort was alright. It was killing him that Luke objected to. 

As he approached, he checked that the two lightsabers clipped to his belt were properly secured. After Vader had pulled his saber away from him with the Force so easily on the factory moon, he had become more careful.

“Has he said anything yet?” he asked Aphra. She shrugged. 

“He’s pretty tight-lipped,” she replied, shooting a glare at the Inquisitor. Luke sighed. He didn’t really have a plan for what to do about their prisoner. He still wasn’t finished with the Temple, not by a long shot, but they couldn’t just keep this guy around while he searched it. What if his ship came looking for him? What if he managed to escape? He’d entertained some ideas about making the Inquisitor check in with his friends to tell them everything was fine, after he told them why he was here, but Luke knew he wasn’t exactly the most convincing person in the galaxy. 

He might as well give it a try though. No harm in that. 

“What’s your name?” he asked.

The Inquisitor said nothing. Aphra tapped the blaster holstered at her side with a meaningful expression. “The kid asked you a question.”

“I’m the Twelfth Brother,” the Inquisitor said reluctantly.

“That’s not a name,” Luke protested. “What do your friends call you? You might be an Imp, but you’ve gotta have friends.”

The Inquisitor scowled. Maybe not. Maybe Sith _didn’t_ have friends. Luke couldn’t imagine Darth Vader hanging out in the mess of a Star Destroyer, or going out drinking on shore leave. If he even could drink, in that suit he wore. After another glare from Aphra though, the Inquisitor said, “Ezra. Bridger. That’s the name I _used_ to have, before I became an Inquisitor. The name of a naive boy, who knew nothing of the world.”

That was probably aimed as a dig at him, Luke thought. But he didn’t really care about being thought of as naive. “So. Ezra,” he said. “Are you here because of me?”

“I don’t even know who you are, apart from a rebel and an untrained padawan,” Ezra replied. Luke thought back to how he had felt Aphra’s intentions earlier and tried to repeat the trick. It was easier the second time; he remembered how it had felt. The Force felt strange around Ezra; thick, almost oily, and strangely cold. It made it harder to tell what he was feeling, but Luke felt pretty confident that he was telling the truth. “I came here because of the temple.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Ezra rolled his eyes. “It’s a Jedi Temple,” he explained. “The Jedi philosophy is corrupt, a plague on the galaxy. That’s why their Order had to be destroyed, and why the Inquisitorius has been tasked with eliminating all traces of their teaching that remain.”

Luke had to bite back his anger. How dare they?! He knew the Empire was destructive, he knew that the Emperor was the root of all their evil, that he and Darth Vader had been behind everything that had happened, killing his father, driving Ben Kenobi into exile, murdering his aunt and uncle… he just hadn’t imagined how far their hate would take them. No wonder it had been so hard to find out anything about the Jedi, about his father. No wonder the holonet had been scoured clean of any reference to them, obvious Imperial propaganda aside.. If an entire branch of Imperial Forces were dedicated to that… if all of them were Sith… 

But turning that anger on the Inquisitor in front of him wasn’t going to help anything. He needed to persuade Ezra to do what he wanted, and that wasn’t going to happen if he shouted at him. 

Luke was observant; Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru might have tried to shelter him from the dangers of Tatooine, particularly those posed by its criminal element, he had still learned a little something from those trips with his friends to Mos Eisley. The best smugglers and bounty hunters didn’t throw their weight around to get what they wanted. They spoke softly and quietly, and let their reputation do most of the work. Not that Luke had any kind of reputation with the Inquisitor - not without giving out his full name, and that result of that wouldn’t be the kind of reputation he wanted. But he could do the first two. 

“I came to this temple to learn about the Jedi and about the Force,” he said. “So you can see why I’m not going to let you do what _you_ came here to do.”

“I can see that much,” Ezra replied, rolling his shoulders to demonstrate that oh yeah, he was still tied up. “But I’m telling you the truth if you would only _listen._ The Jedi weren’t heroes. Maybe if you’ve got some sense you’ll find something here that’ll make you _see_ that.”

In the Force, Luke could feel his conviction. He really believed what he was saying, what he had claimed earlier as well in their fight. Of course, he would. That didn’t mean anything. Even the worst Imperial, even _Darth Vader_ , surely didn’t _know_ how terrible they were or they would stop. People could do horrible things and they justified it to themselves somehow. 

“I believe that _you_ believe it,” he said. “Anyway, that’s the only reason you were here? To destroy the temple. How? Explosives? Call in an orbital strike?”

“That’s a little over the top,” the Inquisitor replied. “No. The building itself doesn’t matter, but there’s bound to be something the Jedi left further inside.” He shrugged. “At least you came to the right place. But you can’t go in, right? It won’t let you.”

Luke scowled at him. “How did you know?”

“Because it’s obvious the only training anyone has given you is how to hold that lightsaber of yours. You’re strong, but you’re fumbling around in the dark. Holocrons aren’t going to cut it. If you want to learn to use the Force, you should let me go and come with me. The only sure way to learn is to learn _from_ someone, and the Sith are the only ones left.”

“And I’m just supposed to take your word for it?” Luke asked. 

“Trust your feelings,” Ezra replied. “Trust your instincts. You already know it’s true.”

“Sounds like bantha-shit to me,” Aphra said. “How about you stick to things we can actually _prove,_ huh?” 

Luke tried not to let his frustration be too obvious. It was true that he hadn’t learned very much from Master Phin-Law Wo’s holocron, and that he hadn’t had any luck so far in reaching the inner depths of the temple. But he hadn’t been here long, and he had Aphra to help him now. 

“When is your ship expecting you to check in?” he asked, changing the subject. 

“Not any time soon,” Ezra replied. “Searching a temple from top to bottom isn’t a quick task.”

Aphra smirked. “Then what’s to stop us from killing you now you’ve told us that, and getting on with things?” she asked - rhetorically, Luke hoped. 

Ezra returned her smile. “If you were going to kill me, you would have done it already,” he said. “Don’t try to hide it; this padawan here doesn’t have the stomach for killing.”

Aphra let out a small bark of laughter, although Luke couldn’t see why. He would have thought it was just part of the bluff, but that wasn’t what the Force was telling him. And she regretted it… for some reason. He shook his head. It didn’t matter right now. 

“You keep calling me a padawan,” he said. “Why?”

“That was what the Jedi called the children they stole when they sent them out onto the battlefield,” the Inquisitor replied, with venom. 

“What do you mean?” That made no sense. Probably Imperial propaganda. What little Luke _had_ managed to find about Jedi on the holonet had been clearly only that; he hadn’t read it. Perhaps he should have, just to see what sort of lies people like Ezra were being fed. 

Ezra shook his head. “You won’t believe me. I can feel it - you think I’ve been brainwashed. That they lied to me. I heard these things from Jedi holocrons kept under lock and key on Mustafar. The Jedi didn’t hide what they did, what they believed. They just had everyone fooled into thinking that was the only possible way to use the Force, and they suppressed, supplanted and destroyed every other Force tradition in the galaxy for generations!”

“If you can feel that much of my thoughts,” Luke replied, fighting to keep his calm, “then you can feel that I’m going to decide this for myself. Once I get into the temple’s heart, then I’ll see what the Jedi artifacts show. Perhaps it will agree with you, but I don’t think so.”

Ezra was clearly thinking about something. He glanced over at Aphra, who had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout all of this. Luke hadn’t known her very long, but it was obvious that she usually had something to say about everything. But the Force was… well, even a smuggler and an archaeologist wouldn’t know much about the Force. Han didn’t, and he had been born before the Clone Wars. Aphra certainly had too. There was a long moment of silence, and then Ezra seemed to decide. 

“If you really will believe the evidence of your own eyes and ears… if that’s what it takes for me to persuade you… then I’ll help you.”

“What?” Aphra shouted, losing her composure for a second.. 

“You’ll… what?” Luke didn’t know how to react. 

“I’ll help you,” Ezra repeated. “To get into the center of the temple. Of course,” he added, “if it makes it easier for you and your friend here to accept, please do assume I have plenty of ulterior motives for this - beyond the obvious, I mean.”

“No,” Aphra said immediately. “Absolutely not. That’s a terrible idea and we are not doing it.” 

That’s what Luke might have thought too at first, but he wasn’t really so sure. He trusted the Force, even if he didn’t have enough experience with it to be confident that he was reading its eddies and currents correctly, but he could feel it nudging him, telling him that this was the path he ought to take. If they did this, then something good would come of it. The Force was less specific about what. 

“Wait,” he said. “Let’s think about this. Even if the ship isn’t expecting to hear from him soon, if we have to spend a few days finding our own way into the temple, that’s going to change. We don’t have much time. This is a chance to get what we need now, and get out.”

“He’s going to double-cross us!” Aphra shouted. “You _cannot_ be this naive!”

“You came here to hide from the Empire,” Luke said. “And obviously Ezra coming here means you’ll have to leave, go somewhere else, but you might at least get _something_ out of it, right?” He was hoping that, like Han when they’d first met him, the promise of credits would be the best way to persuade her that this was the right thing to do. 

“Nothing’s worth _dying,_ Luke,” Aphra said, clearly furious. “I’d like to live to _spend_ all these credits I put my ass on the line for!”

Ezra was watching them calmly. He seemed to be willing to wait and see how this played out. Or maybe he was worried Aphra would just shoot him if he said anything more - she was angry enough right now that Luke wouldn’t entirely put it past her. 

“The Force is telling me we should do this,” he said, trying another tactic. 

Aphra rolled her eyes. “The Force is the Force, whatever! Did you maybe think that _he’s better at it than you?_ If there’s any way to lie using the Force, I can bet he’d know it.”

“I don’t think the Force works that way,” Luke said, a little hesitant. Ben had never mentioned anything like that, he’d always said to trust the Force, but then Ben hadn’t told him a lot of things. He hadn’t had _time_ to tell him a lot of things. 

“But you don’t _know,_ do you,” Aphra said, sensing victory and looking triumphant. “No, what we should be doing is leaving this guy right here, since you won’t kill him, and high tailing it off this planet. There’s bound to be other mud-balls out there where you can learn about the Jedi, and in the meantime, don’t you have the Rebel Alliance to get back to?”

“No,” Luke replied resolutely. “I’m not leaving. I don’t know that I’m going to get another chance and I _need_ to know about whatever’s inside the temple.”

Aphra made a wordless noise of frustration. Her glare was white-hot, but Luke had seen scarier. Mostly from Leia, come to think of it… 

“You don’t have to stay,” Luke continued. “If you want to leave, you should. This isn’t your fight.”

“And leave you alone with this guy? No chance,” Aphra replied. “I’d rather not have your death on my conscience, thanks ever so much.”

“If you’re staying, then we’re going with my plan. Ezra’s plan, I mean.”

“Are all Rebels as nerf-headed as you?”

“Some of them.”

“Then fine!” Aphra said, then turned her glare on Ezra. “And I’ll be watching _you_ every step. Make a move, and the blaster bolt to your spine will be the last thing you ever know.”

“Trust me,” Ezra said with a smirk. “The feeling’s mutual.”

\----

She could not _believe_ this kid! What kind of arrogant _idiot_ would trust an _Inquisitor,_ would just… let them go free to wander around murdering them whenever they felt like it! This was literally the worst plan she had ever heard of in her life, and Aphra was including in that some of the questionable ones she had made when she was first starting out in this line of work. Kriff, how in all the stars and heavens was she going to keep this guy alive long enough for Vader to get his hands on him? 

She tried to calm herself with the reminder that Bridger had seen Vader’s code, that he couldn’t possibly be as stupid as Skywalker was, and therefore wasn’t about to _actually_ kill them both. Small comfort. If only she’d had some warning of where that conversation might go beforehand, then she could have ordered the Inquisitor not to speak about the Temple or about Force-stuff at all. Instead he had taken advantage of the fact that she couldn’t interrupt without giving the game away to lead them off on this goose-chase, keep them here until… what? There must be some kind of plan in this. 

Keep them here until reinforcements arrived, in the form of whoever had sent him in the first place? If it was Karbin or Tagge, then that was just about the only thing that stood a chance of saving Bridger from Lord Vader’s wrath. So perhaps that _was_ it. She couldn't see any other legitimate reason. Certainly Bridger couldn't really hope that this would somehow lead Skywalker to join them or go over to the ‘Dark Side’. Not after what he’d revealed during their fight. 

Could he? 

She watched as Luke drew his lightsaber just long enough to cut through the cabling keeping the Inquisitor tied up, deactivating it and clipping it back onto his belt quickly. Bridger took some time to stretch and work the kinks out of his muscles from being confined in one position. He gave her an awkward smile that might have been meant as conciliatory, but she was having none of it. 

She was going to have to be quick and clever and think on her feet if she wanted to get herself and the kid out of this in one piece. 

\----

Ezra was seriously questioning his own sense of self-preservation. He’d seen the code, he knew who Doctor Aphra was working for. The smart thing would have been to do just what she asked and keep his answers short and sweet, and not go off talking about the Force, about the Jedi, and _absolutely_ not volunteering to _help_ the padawan. _Why_ had he done that? To be honest, the only reason he could give himself was that it had just… felt right. 

It wasn’t anything the padawan had done - he might be powerful, but even he wasn’t strong enough to perform Jedi mind manipulation unconsciously. No, this had been something else, something more subtle. The Force itself. He didn’t claim to be particularly attuned to either the will of the Force, or the wills of the Sith made manifest through the Dark Side, but he had still felt it. The Dark Side had been whispering to him, deep down, saying that this boy was someone important, that he should stay close to him. He would even say that it had been strangely… protective? But that didn’t make any sense. This Skywalker boy had already proclaimed his allegiance to the Jedi, and he seemed very firm in his convictions. 

Although hadn’t Ezra been like that once? And he had still been able to learn better in time, with guidance. So perhaps what he was feeling was _potential._ That _if_ Skywalker were to fall to the Dark Side, then he could be a truly great Sith. 

Either way, he had already made this promise, and he had better hold to it. 

\----

**0 ABY - Nar Shaddaa, Y’Toub system, Hutt Space**

In the end, Inspector Thanoth had been easier to dispose of than he had expected. After losing Aphra despite the trap that had been set for her and the seeming impossibility of escape, the Inspector had not been presented in the best light. As Vader had had no knowledge of that particular aspect of the plan, when Tagge called the both of them to account, it was easy enough to shift the blame. Since Tagge had been in a foul mood in any case - for that pitiful pair of false-Inquisitors Morit and Aiolin had also failed in their task of eliminating the Plasma Devils - he had been in no mood for mercy. 

So that had been the last of Inspector Thanoth. A pity in some ways - he could have been useful, if the circumstances had been different. 

For the moment however, Vader had one more task to complete for Tagge before he would find himself free to travel to Vrogas Vas and retrieve his son. Perhaps Tagge meant to throw him this scrap because he feared Vader’s temper might heat to a boiling point were he not to be indulged a little, or perhaps it was meant as a taunt. It mattered little - Vader welcomed this mission. Apparently his son had run into some difficulties on Nar Shaddaa prior to travelling to Vrogas Vas and now he would have the pleasure of interrogating a Hutt to find out what information he might have gleaned about his son during their brief contact. 

Although his pleasure was short-lived. Tagge had not seen fit to inform him of the precise _nature_ of that contact. 

How _dare_ he! How _dare_ this _slug_ even _think_ of presuming to ownership of his son! His child was free, had been born free, should never have known the pain, the indignity of being a slave. And of course it _would_ have been a Hutt. Vader remembered Hutts. He remembered Gardulla. He remembered how they treated their _property_. 

Sergeant Kreel - once of his own 501st, long since seconded to the ISB and the Inquisitorius due to his particular talents - finished his recounting of the events with clear hesitancy. Vader could feel his apprehension, verging on fear. He did not know how to interpret Vader’s silence, but the slight degree of Force-sensitivity he possessed was sure to leave him aware of the white-hot rage that was burning within him right now, drawing the Dark Side with it. It was filling the room, a heavy blanket of power summoned by his hate, thirsting to obey his will. 

Grakkus sat in the corner of the room that held his treasures, chained and under heavy guard. His cybernetic legs had been de-activated. 

Tagge would be angry if he killed him. The Emperor would be angry. The Hutts were too powerful and too useful to take action against in this way, even though this _sleemo_ had been collecting forbidden Jedi artefacts. That wouldn’t be enough of an excuse. 

Vader did not care. 

Grakkus did not deserve a quick death. Choking would be too swift for the likes of him. But this was a room full of weapons. And the Dark Side was eager to allow him to use them. 

When the crate lid slid open, the stormtroopers stirred nervously. When a dozen lightsabers floated up out of it they took a step backwards. Grakkus chuckled, but Vader could feel his terror. “Of course, these artifacts are the Empire’s now,” the Hutt said, fat tongue slithering over his lips. “I am sure you will deal with them as…”

The sabers activated in mid-air. The first two took the slug’s arms off at the shoulder. His screams mixed pleasingly with the shocked cries of the troopers. Vader stalked closer, hand raised, directing the movements of the blades dancing around the Hutt. The slaver recovered enough to croak out some pitiful, useless protests; that he could not do this, not to someone as important as Grakkus, that he had allies, that Vader would make enemies the Empire would not want. He ignored them. The words were unimportant. All that was important was that the Hutt suffer.

Slowly, methodically, from the tail upwards, Darth Vader began to carve up the creature that had dared to threaten his son.

\-----

**0 ABY, Temple Ruins, Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim**

Ezra was wasting no time in making good on his promise. As the padawan had pointed out, his ship was not going to wait forever to hear from him, and although it would be easy enough to contact them and order them to stay well away from this kriff-storm of a mission, it would be a lot harder to make that action believable to the boy. Luke, that had been the name Doctor Aphra had given him. Luke Skywalker. 

Ezra frowned. That name was familiar somehow. As though he had heard it in a story a very long time ago. 

Well, no time to go digging through his memories trying to work it out, at least not right now when he had much more immediate problems to worry about. Besides, sometimes these things came quicker when you just let them be worked out subconsciously. All that mattered was that Luke was Lord Vader’s target, that he was a member of the Rebel Alliance, and that Aphra’s mission seemed to be to use him to infiltrate the Rebel Fleet. That Luke was also a padawan seemed just a secondary bonus right now, although no doubt that killing him or turning him would please Lord Vader when he brought the inevitable strike force crashing down on the Rebels. 

Would it please him more if he arrived to find that the boy had already made the first steps towards joining the Dark Side? Ezra really hoped so. It was likely to be the only thing that would save his neck. 

Luke was currently leading their little group through the temple passages to the deepest point he had thus far been able to reach. He and Ezra were at the front, that little astromech droid directly behind them with his shock-probe extended in case of any ‘funny business’, and Doctor Aphra was bringing up the rear with a rucksack full of light-emitters and a scowl aimed at Ezra’s back. So far there hadn’t been any opportunity for her to get him alone, but the moment there was, Ezra was sure he was not going to enjoy what followed.

He pushed the thought out of his mind. Focus. The Force was strong here, the Light Side especially so. The Jedi here would have cultivated it over the years, although the presence of a large group of Force-users tended to leave a residue of themselves upon any place they spent a considerable time anyway. Just take Mustafar as an example; the whole planet was enveloped in the Dark Side. It barely took the slightest brush of anger to reach out and touch it. Of course, the original Jedi inhabitants of this world would have been from a time when the Old Order was much more spread out, before they decided to consolidate their power in the political centre of the galaxy, no doubt so that they could better manipulate events to their liking. The temple had lain long abandoned, and the Force was beginning to return to a wilder, less focused state. 

And even in the strongest stronghold of the Light, the Dark was always there. It just required more from you to come to your call. 

They were coming up onto a place where the Force became thicker. Luke stopped them at an intersection of several passages. He looked… unfocused. His Force-presence, still ridiculously strong, was pulsing as though uncertain. 

“Here,” he said, sounding apologetic. “Here’s where it starts to have this effect on me… I just get all turned around. I think I’m taking the right passage, but I just end up right back where I started. I tried marking them, but it didn’t seem to matter.”

Ezra reached out his senses, feeling the shape of the Force here. He could see what Luke meant. The Force was like a barrier here, meant to confuse, to turn aside those who sought to enter. It was easy enough to push it away if you knew what it was. It wasn’t a lack of willpower the padawan was lacking, just the training to know what to do with it. 

“I don’t feel any different,” Aphra said from behind him, a little too close to be comfortable. 

“You wouldn’t,” Ezra replied. “This is only meant as a barrier to Force-sensitives. The dangers ahead wouldn’t be of any concern to those who can’t use the Force. But the reason it’s here is as a test. If you can get past this, then you are ready to face what comes next. If you aren’t ready, then this will protect you from walking right into trouble.”

Luke’s resolve wavered for a moment, then firmed again. It was amazing how little shielded he was. It was only the sheer strength of him that prevented Ezra reading every flicker of emotion that went across his mind - it was a bit overwhelming to look that close. 

If he had lived anywhere less remote than Tatooine, there would have been _no_ chance he could have gone unnoticed to the Inquisitorius. They would have sensed him from _orbit_. 

“So tell me how to make myself ready,” Luke said. 

“Wait just one minute,” Aphra said behind them, clearly angry. “Didn’t Bridger _just say_ that going further without being properly trained was dangerous? I didn’t stick around to watch you get killed by some vague Force trap Luke!”

“I don’t think the Jedi would have filled one of their Temples with deadly traps though,” Luke protested. 

Ezra rolled his eyes. “Of course they would,” he replied. “The Jedi Trials of Knighthood weren’t a _walk in the park_. If you failed, that was it. Although to them failure meant a lot of different things.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not just not being strong enough,” Ezra answered. “The trials also tested the padawan’s adherence to their philosophy. Playing on their emotions, trying to make them use the Dark Side. If they did, they failed, and they would be trapped forever. Until, I’m gonna assume, they died from lack of food and water.”

“And you’re willing to lead me into that?” Luke asked skeptically. “Won’t you end up trapped, using the Dark Side?”

“That’s why I’m relying on you,” Ezra admitted. “I’m hoping your strength is going to win out over lack of training. Although if it doesn’t, then I know how to use the Dark Side properly, which is more than could be said of any Jedi who fell into using it by accident during a trial. I think that should be enough to get us both out. And if we _do_ end up trapped, then Aphra can pull us out. Seeing as she won’t be affected by anything in there.”

“If I have to pull anyone out, I’m leaving _you_ in there,” Aphra replied with heat. 

Ezra shrugged. “Luke’ll make you rescue me,” he replied. “I hope.”

“It’s not going to come to that,” Luke said, clearly trying to be diplomatic. “Now, let’s get on with this. How do I get past the barrier?”

Ezra sighed. “It’s… not something you can _explain_ , or a holocron could do it. It’s much easier to show you.”

“Show me by using the Dark Side?”

“I don’t know how to do it any other way,” Ezra said, although… that wasn’t quite true. He remembered there had been the temple on Lothal. He remembered… but all that was in the past. It belonged to a person who wasn’t him anymore. “Just… reach out and _feel_ what I’m doing.” 

He took a deep breath, in then out, and centered himself. Here he was, the Twelfth Brother, and he _knew_ himself. He was anger, anger at a galaxy which had not allowed him to be strong enough to protect those he loved, not until it was too late. He was anger that became power, became justice. He was a weapon in his own hands, an instrument of his own will. He was the darkness, forged and made solid, a blade to cut through that which was unimportant down to what _mattered_. He was, and the Force was how he was manifest in the world. 

Doubts didn’t matter. Uncertainty didn’t matter. Confusion didn’t matter. 

Forget the unimportant. Let it burn away in the fires of anger, leaving only the cold core that was you. 

And then walk through the mists of disorientation and distraction to the truth that was on the other side. 

Ezra stepped forwards, through the gateway to the temple depths, to the other side of the barrier, with the Dark Side wrapped around him like a cloak. Then he turned back, to see Luke watching him with intense concentration, clearly fighting the effect that told him that Ezra was no longer there, that nothing was there and that he should turn back and return to the outskirts of the temple. 

“I think… I think I understand,” the padawan said quietly. “I think I can do it. Do it my way, I mean.”

This would be interesting to see. Ezra let some of the purity of the Dark Side slip away - it wasn’t easy to maintain that certainty of self and purpose for long without some sort of goal to aim towards - and leaned against the wall to watch. Luke approached the gateway, stopping just shy of the edge of the barrier, and sank to his knees in a meditative pose. He closed his eyes, and reached out into the Force. 

It had been hard to look at the brightness of his Force presence before - it was far worse when he was actively trying. Ezra had to withdraw into himself for his own protection, hiding behind his own shields. The padawan was calling the Force to him, unlike a Jedi who would have only opened himself up and allowed the Force to come or not as it willed, but he wasn’t calling on the Dark Side - at least, he wasn’t calling on anything using his anger, or his hate, both of which Ezra knew he had within him. What was he thinking about, in there? What was this boy’s sense of himself? 

It was becoming almost impossible to tell where Luke ended and the Force began in the wash of it that surrounded him, that surrounded all of them now. Still with his eyes closed, Luke slowly got to his feet and walked forwards, the barrier wrapping around him as he went. He didn’t so much penetrate it as slip through it. Then the Force gradually drained away, and Luke opened his eyes, blinking. 

“It worked!” he exclaimed, grinning enthusiastically. 

Ezra didn’t reply. Luke didn’t seem to have any idea how strong he was, how _strange_ he was, how different. Just what _was_ this boy? 

“Well done both of you on walking forwards ten feet,” Aphra called to them, although Ezra could tell it was meant as gentle teasing. “So can I come join you now or what?” She didn’t wait for a reply, but started approaching before Ezra could object. 

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” he said. “The tests won’t affect you directly, but that doesn’t mean _we_ will be safe to be around when we’re caught up in them. We might not recognise you - or we might think you’re someone else entirely.”

“So I’ll hang back a bit,” Aphra replied. “But if you think I’m waiting for you out here, well…” She gave him a meaningful look. 

“Thank you Aphra,” Luke said. “I feel better knowing you’re going to be around.”

Ezra sighed. Luke was going to get a nasty shock when he found out who Aphra was working for, that was for sure. “Let’s get going then.”

The corridor stretched out ahead of them, enveloped in shadow. He could feel the anticipation in the Force, the feeling of being watched, of the curiosity of that not-quite-sentience. Or sentience on some other level very far apart from that of humanity. The old Jedi had set forth their commandments to it, their criteria, and the Force was still following them all these centuries later. 

He led the way onwards, towards the tests he knew were coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't find a natural place to explain this in Aphra's POV section, but the reason she laughs when Ezra says that Luke clearly doesn't have the stomach for killing is because she's thinking about the fact that he blew up the Death Star. So, y'know. He killed a fuck-ton of people Ezra, don't be fooled by that innocent exterior.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A number of other players begin to converge on Vrogas Vas, the Rebel Alliance gets involved, and Luke and Ezra see something unexpected inside the Temple.

**0 ABY - YT-1300 _Millenium Falcon_ , docked at Alliance operating base _Silent Shadow_ , Outer Rim**

Now that the business with Sana was finally over and done with, Leia was looking forwards to getting back to work. There always seemed to be more to do when it came to the Rebellion, particularly in the wake of the destruction of the Death Star and the new hope it had given to their cause. Resources, ships, people; they were all flocking to their cause, and many planets she might never have suspected of helping them now harboured whispers of support - only whispers, but those would grow. 

And it was easiest to throw herself into work. Much easier than dwelling on loss, on pain. Her family, her world… She couldn’t think about it. If she started to, then she wouldn’t be able to stop, and then what would happen to everyone who was depending on her? She had to be strong enough, and if that meant shutting down the past and focusing on the now, then she would do it. 

Besides, this was the Rebel Alliance. Everyone here had lost something to the Empire. Her loss might be greater than most, but it was one shared by every citizen of Alderaan remaining in the galaxy.

The _Silent Shadow_ had been the nearest base she knew once they had dropped off Sana. It was an old scientific research station, long abandoned prior to the Rebellion repurposing it, and had last seen use during the Clone Wars. It was not in the best of shape, but the long-range listening equipment was still functional, and was proving useful to them in intercepting Imperial transmissions, even if cracking their codes was rather more of a challenge. That same equipment also served to co-ordinate and pass on signals from a number of Rebel bases in this sector and even further afield, rerouting them through gaps in the holonet that would prevent any trace of their original location from being identifiable. At the moment, Leia was waiting to hear back from Mon Mothma with the main fleet. She was unsure as yet what orders they might have for her. Whatever it turned out to be, she hoped she could rely on Solo to take her where she was needed - at least until he met up again with his partner Chewbacca. He continued to insist that he was only staying with the Alliance until the end of the next mission - and then the next mission, and then the next. His reluctance wasn’t fooling anyone, but he was still… unpredictable.

Leia’s personal comm bleeped an alert. There was a connection waiting for her on-station. She rose from where she had been sitting thinking - not brooding, she told herself, _thinking -_ and headed for the communications hub. When she got there, a brief word with the base commander brought her some much needed privacy, and she accepted the link. Mon Mothma’s face flickered into being from the holoprojector. 

“Princess Organa,” Mon said. “I hope you are well.”

“As well as could be expected,” Leia replied. “I will feel better as soon as I can get back to doing what’s really important.”

“As to that, something has come to light which could use your skills and the skills of Captain Solo. We have received some intelligence that could be of extreme importance, but the source is… questionable at best.”

“Questionable how?” Leia asked. 

“We are almost certain that it was passed on to us by an Imperial Agent.”

“Then why are we even having this conversation? Whatever it is is clearly a trap.”

“We would have thought the same,” Mon explained, “except that we believe this information was given to us as part of infighting amongst the Imperial ranks - that the Rebellion is expected to act on it as a tool of one party against another. And the party we are being set against is none other than Darth Vader.”

A sharp stab of fierce rage shot through her. Vader. That monster. After what he had done to her, after what he had allowed to happen to all those innocent people on Alderaan… if there was any chance that the Alliance might be able to eliminate him then they should take it, the risk be damned. 

“Tell me more.”

“Our Imperial source has told us that Vader will shortly be travelling - travelling _alone,_ I might add - to a remote world called Vrogas Vas…”

“Wait,” Leia said, alarmed. “Vrogas Vas is where Luke was heading next!”

“Then we have all the more reason to make sure this information is correct,” Mon replied. “I have discussed the matter with Admiral Ackbar and General Dodonna, and with the current state of the fleet we cannot spare a strike force for the amount of time we would need in order to lay a trap in the system. However, we can have that strike force ready to jump to Vrogas Vas at a few hours notice. All we need is one ship to verify this intelligence, and give the signal to our chosen battle group at the most opportune moment. I believe it only right that this ship should be the _Millenium Falcon_.”

“I agree,” Leia said. If this was true… then they would _have_ Vader. There would be no escape. He would finally face justice for all his crimes… including his crimes against Alderaan. And as the last remnant of Alderaan’s royal house, she would be _more_ than happy to be his judge, jury and - Force willing - his executioner.

\----

**2 BBY - Boz Pity, Halla Sector, Mid Rim**

After months spent tracking the _Ghost_ , Ezra had finally caught up with them on the world of Boz Pity, once the site of a major battle of the Clone Wars and with the mouldering ruins of a Separatist Base left on the surface to draw the Rebellion’s interest. Even with Fulcrum long gone - perhaps dead, perhaps not - and Kanan’s cowardice preventing him from committing to any kind of cause, the crew of the _Ghost_ remained on the peripheries of the movement, coming and going as the name of the ship implied, doing odd jobs and making a nuisance of themselves. Just not enough of a nuisance for the ISB to commit any serious resources to hunting them down. Not when there was a soon-to-be-Inquisitor to do it for them.

In his quarters on the Bayonet-class cruiser _Starfall_ , Ezra gradually came out of his meditation. Perhaps because Kanan simply did not know how to sever it, their training bond had remained intact, and it was this that had allowed Ezra to track him down. It wasn’t exactly reliable or accurate, and often he had arrived at a planet days too late, but this time he was sure. Kanan was here, and when Ezra killed him, he would finally be worthy to be an Inquisitor.

The thought was… uncomfortable, but he pushed the feeling down. He knew why it had to be done. If even the smallest trace of the Jedi philosophy survived… Not that it was necessarily a sure thing that Kanan would have to die. There was always a choice. He could come with Ezra back to Mustafar and that would be enough. Except that Ezra knew Kanan. He knew he would never agree. He hadn’t the last time, although the Phantom had come before there had really been time to try to convince him. For all that he refused to stand up for anything _real_ , when it came down to it, Kanan could really be stubborn when he wanted to be.

That left Ezra only one option. An option that he was sure he was capable of. The Inquisitorius had trained him well.

In the internecine bureaucracy of the Empire, the Inquisitorius was technically a branch of the Imperial Security Bureau, and drew transport and support craft from their fleets. The _Starfall_ was part of Atravis sector group, based out of Mustafar, and its Captain was not entirely happy at being seconded to this admittedly protracted search by an Inquisitorial Apprentice. But the order had come from further up the chain of command than Ezra himself. Kanan’s death was personal, and personal mattered to the Sith.

Rising, Ezra left his quarters and headed for the bridge. _Starfall_ had already begun long-range scanning of Boz Pity, and would have launched probe droids the moment they emerged from hyperspace. Once the _Ghost_ or some sign of its crew was detected, Ezra would take a TIE down to the surface after them while the ship remained in planetary orbit.

Captain Siln was waiting for him. As an Imperial officer, of course he wouldn’t do anything as undignified as show emotion, but despite that his irritation was loud in the Force. “Apprentice,” he said, “I hope this time you actually have something to show for your efforts.”

“Have the probe droids found anything yet?”

“We have picked up traces of drive emissions near the wreckage of the _Intervention_ ,” Siln admitted.

“Then I’ll leave at once,” Ezra said. “Soon this will be over with and we can return to Mustafar.”

What remained of the Venator-class Star Destroyer _Intervention_ was quite substantial for all that the superstructure of the ship had broken apart into several pieces upon impact. It was clearly visible from the air, dwarfing even the surrounding graveyard mounds of the long-extinct Gargantelle. Native flora had begun to overtake it, but it was sure to still be a valuable source of salvage of all kinds, which explained why the _Ghost_ was here, rather than at the Separatist base as Ezra had expected. As he brought the TIE down towards a likely landing site, he reached out to the Dark Side, drawing on memories of Mustafar to inspire the anger he needed. Yes, the training bond was showing him that this was where he had to be. Kanan was here, and close.

Many beings had died when the _Intervention_ crashed, and death always made the Dark Side stronger. He could feel it swirling around him, guiding him onwards, snapping at his heels in a way that could perhaps be called playful if only malevolent wasn’t the better word. It was dark inside the deserted corridors of the Venator, the power long dead, but Ezra’s helmet came equipped with low-light visuals. He made his way silently through the ship. He hoped they didn’t know he was coming, but he wasn’t going to depend on it. Making assumptions was a good way to get killed, and Mustafar had done wonders for his survival skills.

Then he came upon a portion of the Venator where the emergency lighting system had been activated, and there was a faint buzzing in the walls which meant that someone had restored the back-up power to this section. The Force was tugging at him now, insistent. Kanan was nearby. Ezra could feel his presence, so familiar. His thoughts flew back to all those months on board the _Ghost._ Even Zeb seemed less annoying in his memories. It had been so hard to stop missing them, but he could never go back to that life. He had to move on. That was the only way. Always move forwards.

If he could just separate Kanan from the rest… He didn’t want to fight any of the others. At least the Inquisitorius had allowed him to keep the design of his original lightsaber. Lightsabers were weapons designed to kill and maim, and made it almost impossible to subdue an opponent without also removing a limb, whereas the integrated blaster had a stun setting. Much more versatile, and his instructors had agreed. He wasn’t the only agent out there who had this design now, although he had learned to use the dual rotating blades as well.

There was a noise from up ahead. Looking around for somewhere to hide, Ezra’s gaze fell on a grate overhead. The ductwork. He was bigger than he used to be, but he should still fit. And he felt comfortable in air ducts. All Force-sensitive younglings did - it was something about enclosed spaces that seemed to appeal, irrespective of species or affiliation. With a wave of his hand he tore the grate away and leapt upwards, and just in time. From his hiding-place, he heard two sets of footsteps coming down the corridor, and the soft whirr of droid wheels.

“I’ve never seen Kanan this bad before,” a deep, rough voice said. Even without the Force he would have recognised it. Zeb. And the voice that replied had to be Sabine.

“Yeah, well I feel pretty terrible too,” she said. “But neither he or Hera could have known what was going to happen. That the Empire would turn him into… this.”

A loud angry burble answered here. Chopper.

Zeb huffed. “I hate it. We might have had our differences sometimes, but I liked the kid. And now he’s either going to kill us all, or we’re going to have to kill him.”

“It should be me or you. Not Kanan. This weighs heavy enough on him as it is, I don’t think…”

“Yeah. I don’t think he could do it. If we get a chance…”

“Then we take our shot.”

Chopper's angry hiss could only be agreement.

And then they had passed out of earshot once again. So they did know he was coming. But they didn’t know he was only here for Kanan. That hurt. Did they really think so little of him? The Inquisitorius had shown him so much, made him realise that the harsh methods of the Empire were only reactions to chaos in the galaxy, and that if he wanted to make things better for people everywhere then he could do more good working inside the system than against it. Without Kanan, the others would be much less of a threat, and so the Empire would be able to relax its iron fist in this part of space. Besides, they were still his friends, his _family_ , and that still meant something.

He still needed to find Kanan. Moving cautiously so the old, worn metal didn’t creak or groan under him, Ezra moved through the ductwork, following the pull of the Force. It led him to a hatch looking down on a room that must have been the Infirmary. The once shining-white walls had faded with time, and the monitoring screens showed only dust and error messages, but judging from the heap of boxes piled up on a cargo floater in the centre of the room, there had been plenty of supplies left behind after the crash. Although it was amazing they could find anything in amongst the wreckage – it looked like everything that wasn't screwed down had rattled around in here at the moment of impact, cratering walls and leaving piles of tangled metal everywhere.

And there was Kanan. Kanan _and_ Hera, to be precise, searching through the cupboards and the mess for anything useful to add to what they had already taken. They were talking, and if he strained, Ezra could just about make out their words.

“We're almost done,” Hera was saying. “Then we can get out of here before our _friend_ shows up.”

Kanan put down the box he was holding. Ezra couldn't see his face from where he was, but his former teacher's shoulders were slumped. He looked worn, weary. Thinner than last time he had seen him. “Please don't talk about him that way Hera.”

“Have you forgotten how many times he's tried to _kill_ us?” Hera replied angrily, whirling on Kanan, her lekku twitching, although Ezra thought she was giving him a little too much credit. Mostly he tried to chase them; he rarely got close enough to try to kill anyone. “He betrayed us a long time ago. You need to stop thinking of him as the boy you knew, as your Padawan! That person died on Mustafar.”

“And whose fault is that?” Kanan said quietly.

“Not _yours_.” Hera said. “It's mine if we're going to blame anyone on this crew. I was the one who made the decision to leave on Lothal. _You_ were half-dead at the time. But the only ones _I'm_ going to blame are the Empire.”

“If I had been better...”

This had the sound of an old argument, at least by the way Hera spoke. In some way Ezra was glad that Kanan felt guilt over what had happened that day, even though he himself didn't hold anyone responsible for leaving him. A Jedi might have called it the will of the Force, but a Sith knew better. It had been the will of Darth Vader, for a true Sith Lord told the Force how the world should be and it obeyed. Not that Ezra himself was anywhere near that strong yet, and it would take a lot of training before he could even think about even _seeing_ the future, let alone changing it. But some part of him wanted to know that Kanan... missed him. Wanted that evidence that he had cared about him.

He had heard enough. If he let them go on any longer they might decide to leave, and at the moment he was between them and the door. Kicking the metal grate aside he leapt out of the air-duct and landed in a crouch on the floor of the Infirmary, igniting his lightsaber in the same moment. The snap and hiss of the crimson blade was loud in the sudden, shocked silence.

“Apparently you're so weak in the Force you can't even tell when I'm right above your head,” he told Kanan conversationally. “You'll find it a bit harder to escape _this_ time.”

“Ezra.” Kanan's face had drained of all colour. He hadn't even reached for his lightsaber yet. This would be the perfect time to attack, but it... but it wouldn't be _satisfying_. Kanan deserved at least for this to be a fair fight.

“Look, we can go over the whole argument one more time,” Ezra said, giving his lightsaber a little twirl in his hand, mostly just to make things less awkward. “All you have to do is come with me. Abandon the Jedi, learn the ways of the Sith, use the Force the way it was _meant_ to be used!” Only a cold furious gaze met his own. Ezra shrugged, shifting his weight. “Or we can skip all that and get to the part where we fight to the death. How about it?” 

“That sounds like a good idea to me,” Hera growled, and went for her blaster.

Ezra deflected the shots, drawing his concentration away from Kanan to make sure that they went into the wall rather than into Hera. The last time it had just been him and Kanan, before the _Phantom_ came swooping in to the rescue. “I'm only here for _him_ ,” he shouted. “Just get out of my way and you, Sabine and Zeb can all leave safely, I _promise_.”

“Like we're going to believe _that_!” Hera replied, taking cover behind what remained of one of the beds, pulling Kanan with her. Had he been this stunned and useless last time? Maybe. They'd been pretty far apart on the gantries, and then the factory had started busily exploding all around them, so it had been hard to tell.

“Kanan, tell her I'm telling the truth!”

“I can't say I know _anything_ about you any more Ezra,” Kanan replied, finally finding his voice.

Ezra made a noise of pure frustration. “Then come out and fight! If you think I'm here to kill all of you, then you should be trying to kill me first!”

“Aren't you going to finish persuading him to join you first, _Inquisitor_?” Hera snarled. “That how your kind deals with Force-users. Promising their loved ones will be safe if all they do is betray everything they've ever known and cared about! Liars and traitors, all of you! You only end up hunting down your friends in the end!”

“Well _yes,_ ” Ezra said, annoyed. Still, his anger was a source of strength, letting the Dark Side flow through him with ever-greater ease. He needed that strength - it would prevent him from thinking too hard about what he had to do. “But only because Kanan's a Jedi. And he refused and he keeps refusing and I no longer believe that’s ever going to change!” He moved to the side, trying to circle around the mess of rubble, tangled cables and metal scrap, to get a good view of their hiding-place. If he tried to simply jump over, that would leave him open to an attack in the moments before he landed.

“Fine.” Kanan stepped out from behind the twisted metal, in the process of screwing the pieces of his lightsaber together.

“Get back here,” Hera hissed, just loud enough for Ezra to overhear, but Kanan shook his head.

“We can't keep running forever,” he said. “This needs to end. It might as well be now.”

He sounded defeated already. Ezra suspected this was going to be depressingly easy. Perhaps Kanan even _wanted_ to die. It was a pity it had come to this, but Ezra was able to look at the bigger picture now in a way he never had when he was younger. It might not seem like it at first, but doing this would make the galaxy a safer place in the end. And no-one _else_ would have to die.

Kanan ignited his lightsaber. Ezra gave him little enough time after that to even get his guard up - aggression was, after all, the way of the Dark Side. Their sabers spat as they clashed, as they tested each other’s strength. Ezra had learned a lot in the past few years, and Kanan… well, he had only ever been a padawan. There had been no-one for the last Jedi to spar with since Ezra left, and it showed. He was just a little slower, a little less sure, a little… inadequate. Ezra already knew that he was going to win. It was only a matter of time, and when the opening inevitably came, he would take it. 

Then all this would finally be over.

\----

**0 ABY - Temple Ruins, Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim**

“You killed him,” Luke said, trying to process what he had just seen. What he had just _felt_ … because he had been feeling emotions, thoughts, that weren’t his own all throughout that. Thoughts that must have belonged to Ezra. The Inquisitor blinked as the last remnants of the image - of the memory - slowly vanished into the air and darkness that surrounded them. 

“I don’t know why we saw that…” he said very quietly. “That’s not… it didn’t ask anything of us. It was just…”

“A memory?” Luke said sharply, completing the thought. “I saw who he was, what he meant to you! He was your teacher! And you just… killed him. Just like that. How _could you_?”

“Because it was necessary!” Ezra snapped, fire blazing in his eyes. “For the good of the Empire, for the good of the galaxy! Not because I _wanted_ to!”

“How can you believe that?” Luke asked. How could anyone murder someone they had cared about so much, just for… for _ideas_? For something so… so abstract? In that vision of the past, he had looked through Ezra’s eyes, and he had felt the memories within the memory, everything that Kanan Jarrus the person meant - not just someone who had told Ezra about the Force, but someone to look up to, someone he cared for, someone who was almost a second father. And all that… given up. Abandoned. _Why?_

“He was a Jedi! He would have found another padawan, he would have told them the same lies he told me, it would all have happened all over again and the Empire would have… would have been forced to act against everyone his ideas had touched! By killing _him_ I was saving their lives!”

Luke could hear the pleading in Ezra’s voice. He could feel the guilt behind it, the pain, the anger that seeped out of all the cracks in his mind and the oily, strange, cold side of the Force that crept in behind it, trying to soothe. “You mean your crew, right?” he asked softly. “The other ones we saw there, in the memory?”

“ _Yes_. Because of what I did, they’re still out there, somewhere. Hating me, but alive.”

“That kind of choice… it’s horrible,” Luke said. “I don’t understand how you can work for the Empire when they’re the ones who forced you to make a choice like that.”

Ezra shook his head. The cracks in his Force presence were already beginning to disappear, the cold walls coming up. “Terrible choices are just the way of the galaxy,” he said. “And strong governments understand that. It’s why terrorists like your Rebel Alliance aren’t going to win.”

“It _shouldn’t_ be like that!” Luke replied. “It doesn’t _have_ to be like that!”

“Let’s go,” Ezra said. “There’s going to be more before we make it all the way in.”

\----

**0 ABY - YT-1300 _Millenium Falcon_ , above Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim**

Han had shown some good sense for once, and brought the rust-bucket he called a ship out of hyperspace at the edge of the Vrogas Vas system, well out of range of any standard Imperial sensor sweep patterns. Their informant had been very certain that Vader had no knowledge of any treachery, and would not be expecting anyone else to be in this system. They ought to be able to approach carefully at sublight speeds and assess the situation. The _Falcon’s_ own sensor suite was… ramshackle at best, even Solo himself had admitted, but Leia had arranged for the Rebellion’s technicians to improve it to the point that they would be able to see Vader before he saw them. After the installation was complete they had come here immediately.There hadn’t even been time to make a detour to pick up Chewbacca. 

“Are you picking anything up yet?” she asked Han, as they slid past a cold, dead ball of a planet, closer towards the fat red sun ahead of them and the temperate world orbiting it. 

“Patience, princess,” Han replied, leaning back in his chair. “Even this new tech isn’t _that_ good - and where did you steal it anyway; fell off the back of a freighter on the way to KDY?”

“Something like that,” Leia admitted. Kuat Drive Yards had always been a bastion of Imperial support, which only made sense given how many credits rolled into Kuat’s coffers from them every year. But not everyone employed by that vast company had agreed with the building of the Death Star, and some had been very pleased to see it reduced to nothing more than rubble and dust. 

“Hope you don’t think you’re getting it back when I leave,” Han said, smirking. “Smuggling cargo past the Imps’ll be child’s play with those babies looking out for me.”

“Still insisting you’ve got someplace better to be?” Leia asked. At this point she knew it was only bluffing. Something Solo told himself to pretend he still had the independence he held so dear. No. He might not believe the Alliance could win, but he believed in its ideals, he had friends here - Luke chief amongst them - and he was starting to come around to the idea that they really could strike back against the Empire’s tyranny, that there really was hope yet for freedom and democracy. 

“Listen, I’m not making any money hanging around with losers…” Han started to say, and then trailed off, focusing intently at the readouts in front of him. 

“What is it?”

“We’re picking up some readings - difficult to be sure at this distance, but it looks like an Imperial cruiser.”

“Then he’s already here?” Leia asked, her fingers tightening on the back of Han’s chair to the point of pain. “That traitor Karbin said he was still on Nar Shaddaa!”

“He also said Vader would be coming alone,” Han pointed out. “Call me crazy, but last time I checked, a whole cruiser doesn’t mean alone. That info mentioned a _small_ ship.”

Leia couldn’t quite hold back her growl of frustration. “I knew we couldn’t trust him,” she said. “That thing has the firepower to survive our battlegroup _just_ long enough for Imperial reinforcements to arrive. It _has_ to be a trap.”

Han started to plot in a course change that would bring them back round, firing up the nav computer as he did so. “I’d’ve thought they’d be smarter than that,” he said. “Should’a known we’d have guessed their plan the moment we saw that cruiser.”

Leia frowned. He was right. The Empire could often be overconfident, but it was rarely foolish, and Vader was a great deal smarter than this. Why not a shuttle, or even his TIE-Advance? A good pilot could evade their ships long enough to spring a trap… and Vader was a lot more than just a good pilot, so why this? Why overplay his hand with a show of strength? 

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Can you fly this thing close enough that we can get a read on their ident without being detected.”

“Of course,” Han said, affecting indignation at the thought that his piloting might be as shabby as his ship. “But unless you’ve got the Imp database loaded up on those sensors as well I’m not sure what good it’ll do us.”

Leia only smiled. 

“You don’t… do you?”

“An old copy,” Leia told him. “Just enough to get us a name, and some sort of history if we’re lucky. But that might tell us enough to work out what kind of game the Empire’s playing here.”

Han nudged the _Falcon_ back onto its original heading, and they continued on further into the system. Leia felt the apprehension curdling in her stomach like something sour, but she ignored it. That too was getting easier to do - she had been in what felt like hundreds of situations where there was no guarantee of a good outcome - and although Han hadn’t mentioned it yet, she was sure the possibility was weighing on his mind even heavier than on her own. If Vader had come in that ship, if this trap really was his work, then he had been in the same system as Luke for who knew how long… And there was no way that anything good could have come of that.

“We’re getting something,” Han said suddenly, breaking through the preoccupation of her thoughts. “That’s an ISB cruiser. Bayonet class. The _Starfall_. Huh, not exactly up to Imp standard with a name like that. Should be called the _Devastator_ , or the _Wrathful_ , something like that.”

“The ISB… that doesn’t seem right,” Leia said, half to herself. “Vader is involved with them on occasion, but he much prefers to use Navy resources… so why would he be baiting a trap with an ISB ship?”

“Perhaps its Captain did something to piss him off recently?” Han suggested. 

“There’s something here we’re missing,” Leia said. 

There was the sense, the shape of something, some thought lurking at the edge of her mind, but she didn’t get a chance to get a proper grip on it, because at that moment another ship dropped out of hyperspace approaching the planet. It was a sleek silver yacht and it definitely _did not_ belong in this situation. 

“Hell, whoever’s on that ship is about to have a very bad day,” Han said, looking alarmed. 

“Scan it,” Leia ordered, her heart sinking. “I have a very bad feeling about this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere Palpatine can't stop laughing at the idea that Darth Vader has control over _shit _. You got the wrong mastermind Ezra.__
> 
> __(This keeps happening. *coughs in Kylo Ren's direction*)_ _


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello naughty children, it's visions time. Plus, Vader's arrival, and Han is a man with a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for slavery and graphic description of a short episode of violence in the final section of this chapter.

**0 BBY - Tatooine, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

Something was burning. Ezra could smell the acrid, chemical scent, and something else underneath, something very particular and distinctive. He knew it as the scent a lightsaber left after carving through flesh. Here, he suspected a different cause. The air was heavy with smoke. 

He was still reeling from the last vision, and from Luke’s words to him in that brief moment afterwards. He had done his best to forget Boz Pity. Better to relegate it to the past; he had done what was necessary and let that be the end of it. He had secured his place in the Inquisitorius, ended the threat to the Empire, opened up his path to power that would let him _protect_ people… it was useless to think about the price he had paid for all of that. 

It had seemed easier, before he’d done it. He hadn’t thought… he hadn’t considered what it would _really_ be like, to feel Kanan’s life dwindle away, to feel him become one with the Force. To feel Hera’s heart break. No, he had only thought about the lies of the Jedi, about what Kanan had been complicit in, even though Kanan had practically still been a child when the Jedi Order existed. But Kanan had only ever known what the Jedi had told him, none of it was really his fault, and… if he could have just joined the Inquisitorius… 

No, he was going to _forget_ this! He needed his anger; guilt was no weapon, guilt was just a path to uncertainty and no-one could use the Dark Side if they didn’t have confidence in themselves, in the rightness of their actions. Kanan had forced his hand. Believe in that. The others - your _family -_ they’re alive because you killed him. Believe in _that_. 

Besides, he was right in the middle of another vision, and he needed to concentrate. It was no memory of his own, which meant he must be seeing something of Luke’s. Where was Skywalker? Ezra scanned the unfamiliar surroundings, looking for the small figure through the thick, oily black smoke. In trouble? He hoped not, for his own sake. 

“Luke,” he called out, trying not to shout too loud, in case unfriendly ears were listening. “Luke, where are you?”

He was somewhere dry, dusty and hot. The sky overhead was a clear blue where it was visible, with… two suns? Binary systems with habitable planets were rare, but he didn’t know the names of any systems that might match this one. There was some kind of building a little way off, a low dome scorched with the marks of blaster fire, and several other structures that seemed built into the ground. If Luke was here, perhaps he would find him in there.

As Ezra made his way towards the building, he heard the sound of a speeder approaching. It was an old X-34 model in faded red, though well-maintained. As it slowed and came to a halt, a figure in white jumped out and ran towards the dome. It took a moment, but then he realised - it was Luke. The tan had faded and the hair darkened since whenever this memory was taking place, but it was unmistakably him. 

“Uncle Owen!” Luke shouted. “Aunt Beru! Uncle Owen!” 

Ezra already had a bad feeling about this. He started to jog towards him. Skywalker didn’t seem to have noticed his presence yet. His gaze was fixed on a point just by the open door… and the two bodies that lay there. Ezra swore to himself. Of course. Family. Attachment. Loss. That’s what these visions were pulling on. Just measuring their reactions, or were the actual tests yet to come? 

Luke looked away from the grisly sight. Ezra could feel his anger, but it was unfocused, no-one to target it on, and not yet sensitive enough in the Force to use it to call on the Dark Side. Perhaps then it would be alright. If this was all the memory had to show them… 

A noise came from inside the house. Luke heard it; he snapped to attention and drew the lightsaber that had been hanging from his belt. But his form was terrible, and he held it awkwardly, as though it was unfamiliar to his hand. Had he only just been given it? This memory couldn’t be long ago - Luke hadn’t changed that much. He had said it was his father’s - so where was his father in all this? Long dead, or had it been more recently? Luke had claimed Darth Vader had killed him, but Lord Vader had been hunting Jedi and Force-sensitives for years, so that gave Ezra no clues. 

A white helmet poked up out of the sunken stairwell leading down inside the house. Ezra tensed as everything seemed to hold still in a perfect moment of tension and surprise… and then with a yell Luke activated his saber and leapt forwards, swinging wildly. The stormtrooper ducked, and the blade left a glowing line in the wall above his head. His blaster came up, and he squeezed off a trio of shots, forcing Luke back as his saber whirled desperately to deflect them. That anger was no longer vague, aimless, it was concentrated down to a single point of rage, and the moment he was pushed hard enough to really draw on the Force… 

It couldn’t have actually happened this way, Ezra realised. Not and have Luke still be the person that he was now. And that trooper… his presence in the Force was oddly flat, not like that of a real person at all. It was as if he was simply… a puppet. Yes, that was it. The trooper was no more real than his own vision of the Inquisitor in the temple on Lothal. Which meant that this _was_ a test… and one which Luke was going to fail if things continued on as they were now. 

That realisation should have pleased him. So why didn’t it? Even if Luke started to use the Dark Side and they became trapped, they had Aphra to pull them out. Why was he so worried? 

“Luke, _wait,_ ” he shouted, operating on instinct. “Think about this! Remember where you really are!”

But Luke didn’t seem to hear him. _Couldn’t_ hear him, perhaps. Ezra hadn’t noticed Luke’s presence while he was reliving their last memory, so perhaps he was just as invisible to Luke in this one. So what could he do then? Nothing? Just let this play out? No, he sensed danger ahead if things continued on their current path, vague and nebulous, but still present. 

Luke swung again, the lightsaber humming through the air, scoring a line along the stormtrooper’s shoulder - but it was only a glancing hit, not deep enough to truly wound. Still, the trooper shouted out in alarm, and started to back away down the stairs, firing his blaster as he went. Ezra felt the Force pulse around Skywalker and Luke flung himself to the side out of the way, cursing. 

That gave him an idea. Maybe he wasn’t able to reach Luke _physically,_ but through the Force… the Dark Side was all around them, trembling with a sense of eagerness, just waiting on Luke’s slightest command to jump to his will. But it would answer to Ezra’s just as well. He reached out his mind towards the brilliant fire that was Luke, reached out to that fury that wanted to avenge the loss of his family - a fury Ezra knew all too well. 

_Luke,_ he called. _Luke, stop. Wait. Wait just a moment._

His words were answered by confusion, a flurry of thoughts too fast to read, and then _finally_ Luke turned towards him, lowered his saber. 

“Ezra?” he said. “What are you doing here… oh.” Ezra felt the realisation slowly spread across his mind as the temple’s cloak of disorientation gradually disintegrated. “This… this isn’t real.”

“No, it’s not. It’s one of the tests. Trying to see what you’ll do when you’re angry.”

Luke looked down at the lightsaber in his hand as though he was surprised by its very presence. “It didn’t happen like this,” he said. “When I got here… there wasn’t anyone left.”

Slowly, their surroundings began to dissolve, the light of the two suns overhead fading back into the familiar darkness of the temple. 

“Where was that anyway?” Ezra asked. The light from Luke’s blade illuminated the walls all around them, illuminated their faces and not much more. Luke’s expression was pained. The anger had mostly ebbed away from him, but the sorrow remained. 

“My home,” he replied. 

“What happened?”

“Why are you asking?” Luke glared at him. “You don’t really want to know - you’re part of the Empire, you agree with everything they do, even when they murder people! You’re nothing more than one of their executioners! They killed my family; my father, my mother - I never knew much about her but my Aunt and Uncle told me that much. Owen and Beru were all I had, and then the Empire killed them too!”

Ezra found himself taking a step back in the face of the venom turned his way. The Dark Side was still close, and if Luke reached out to it now… he wasn’t sure he’d survive the experience. Perhaps this was what his instincts had been trying to tell him. Let the padawan turn away from the Light Side and the Jedi, but let him do it once Ezra was well away from here! He would be far too dangerous until he learned to _use_ his anger, to _control_ it. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right; I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Fine,” Luke said, turning away and powering off his lightsaber. “Then let’s keep going.”

\----

Luke really didn’t like how he was feeling at the moment. He wasn’t used to being this angry, this… this out of control. Ever since he had left Tatooine he had been angry at the Empire, but it hadn’t been anger like that, anger that burned, that chased all of the thought out of your head. The only time he had felt like that before was facing Darth Vader on the factory moon, and look how much good that had done him! Vader had smacked him down with ease, and would have killed him if it weren’t for Leia and Han. He had vowed that next time would be different, next time he would be stronger in the Force, a better fighter, and he would be _smart_ about it. 

But it was one thing to say that to yourself, another to actually do it. Was that what the vision had been trying to show him? It had been so raw, so real. Just like being back there, after pushing the speeder to its limits to reach their house from the destroyed Jawa transport, already knowing in the back of his mind that it was too late from the very moment he saw the stain of smoke on the horizon. The stormtroopers hadn’t even given them the decency of a burial. Just left their bodies there, left their bones to dry in the sun. Probably hoping it too would be blamed on Sand People. 

How was he, how was _anyone,_ supposed to be calm in the face of that? 

He followed Ezra sullenly on down the corridor. Had he been too harsh, speaking to him like that? None of it was untrue, and after what he had seen in the Inquisitor’s memories… if he had been about to fail the temple’s test because he cared too much, then at least that was better than caring so little you could do that… or twisting your caring into whatever strange, warped version of it now drove Ezra on. No, he didn’t regret his words, and even Ezra hadn’t objected to it. Luke had felt that much from him - a weary kind of acceptance. 

So what now? How many more tests, visions, could there be? 

Next time, Luke vowed, next time, he would do better. 

\-----

**0 ABY - J-type 327 Nubian yacht _Padmé Amidala_ , above Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim**

The boy - his _son -_ was alive. That much became clear at the moment of Vader’s arrival in this system. The world of Vrogas Vas glowed in the Force, but Luke’s presence burned more brightly still. How was it that he had not seen it at their last meeting? He had seen that strength, acknowledged it, but he had not considered what it might _mean._ He had not looked deeply enough to see the truth that, now he knew it, was so obvious. There had been no reason to suspect the boy was his son, no reason to suspect that he even _had_ a son, but that was a poor excuse. The Force would have told him, had he merely asked it. 

There was no time to dwell on mistakes. Luke was alive, yes, but that was no guarantee that he was _safe._ Until he had the Inquisitor in front of him and could pull the answers he needed from his mind he would not know the reasons he had come to be here. The man might yet turn out to be a traitor. And now that he was here above Vrogas Vas, he could sense what had drawn his son; there was a Jedi Temple on the planet. Such a place was not without its own dangers for the unwary and untrained. Luke was strong, but he knew little of the ways of the Force. Kenobi had been too scared of his potential to teach him - it was the only explanation Vader could see for the current state of affairs. But that too had its own benefits - there would be no bad habits for him to unlearn. 

He was being hailed. Vader roused himself from the state of meditation that he usually maintained during hyperspace travel and opened the channel. 

“Unidentified vessel, this is the ISB cruiser _Starfall._ You are trespassing on an Imperial mission. State your name and purpose in this star system immediately, or you will be met with deadly force.”

So, the Inquisitor had not informed his ship of the situation on the planet’s surface. That had been wise of him; the fewer people who knew anything about Luke the better. It would only have taken the mention of Luke’s name… he could not take the chance that someone old enough to have a good memory of the Clone Wars would put the pieces together. Vader accessed his own ship’s systems, searching the database for this particular vessel. 

“Captain Siln,” he said, and heard the intake of breath over the channel as the captain recognised who was speaking. His voice _was_ particularly distinctive. “My business here is none of your concern.”

“Lord Vader!” the captain said. “I apologise! Of course, we await your orders. The Twelfth Brother remains on the surface at the present moment, but we can hail him immediately…”

“That will not be necessary Captain,” Vader said. “I will be landing on Vrogas Vas. Remain in orbit. I may have further orders for you.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Vader closed the channel. Captain Siln was obedient, and to his credit, not inclined to ask questions despite the inquisitiveness that would have been drilled into him as part of ISB training. Whether he would live to continue to serve the Empire was a question regarding which he had not yet decided. Much would depend on what he found on the planet below, and the answers the Twelfth Brother gave him.

That designation… he remembered the boy, remembered him as something other than the usual apprentices whose final training he usually oversaw. He had captured the boy personally. The Inquisitor had once been a Jedi’s padawan, one of their poor attempts at continuing the traditions of their fallen order, and his strength in the Force had been slightly above average. And he had killed his former Master, which showed promise for a Sith. 

Was this significant? Perhaps not. 

Soon it would not matter. Soon he would have his son.

\----

**0 ABY - YT-1300 _Millenium Falcon_ , above Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim**

“Karbin was telling the truth after all,” Han said, as their tenuous hold on the Imperial comm channel finally slipped and disintegrated into static. “Huh. Wouldn’t have thought it of some Imp officer slime.”

Leia made no reply. She could barely seem to think through the white noise that filled her skull. He was here. Vader was here. That _torturer,_ that _murderer…_ He was here, in a sleek little ship that couldn’t hold much more than just the monster himself, and he was heading for the planet’s surface - alone. The presence of the cruiser made things more complicated, but their course of action seemed clear. Vader had to be captured, or he had to die. She knew which she would personally prefer, but it would be better for the Rebellion if they could take him alive. That kind of propaganda victory, piled on top of the one they had already won in destroying the Death Star… 

But if they did somehow manage to capture him, could they keep him? Vader was an army in and of himself, as the Empire’s own propaganda machine was always only too quick to capitalise on. When Vader was put in charge of an Imperial campaign, he led from the front, and they had the footage to prove it - carefully curated by COMPNOR, of course. Killing him would be challenge enough. 

“What’s _Vader_ doing with a pretty ship like that?” Han was saying, although it must have been obvious that Leia was only half listening. “It looks like something _you_ should be flying around in, Princess.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, shaking herself out of her thoughts. It was foolish to get caught up in all the things that could go wrong. She knew what had to be done. They had been handed an opportunity, and even if things weren’t quite as favourable as they had hoped given the cruiser currently in orbit, the potential rewards far outweighed the many risks. The battle group was waiting, and would be more than a match for a single Imperial vessel. “We’ve got to make the call, and summon the fleet that Mon promised.”

“And what about Luke?” Han asked, gesturing to the blue and green ball of the planet below. “You heard - Vader’s heading down there right now! By the time your ships get here, it might be too late!”

Leia raised an eyebrow. “Are you of all people suggesting we should embark on a risky, potentially suicidal rescue mission?” she asked him sarcastically. “Oh wait, I remember how well thought out your plan to rescue _me_ was.”

“Hey, that plan was all Luke’s idea,” Han replied. “My plans are much better.”

“Let’s hear it then.”

He hesitated. “Well I hadn’t actually gotten that far yet. But we can’t just hang around here waiting for a couple of hours after we send the signal! Who the hell knows why Vader came here, but the moment he finds out that Luke is down there too, it’s all over for the kid!”

They _should_ wait. It would be the smarter thing to do. But Leia couldn’t deny that she was worried about Luke as well. Heading down to the surface would alert the Imperials to their presence… but that yacht couldn’t be as fast or as well-armed as the _Falcon,_ and if they could make it past the cruiser into atmosphere, then they might be able to prevent Vader from making any kind of escape. If they could destroy or disable his ship… that would greatly improve the Rebellion’s chances.

“Do you really think you can make it?” she asked. 

“Piece of cake,” Han said, smirking. “Send your signal, and then I’ll show you some real fancy flying.”

\----

Ezra blinked. He was standing on a stage, staring out at a crowd of grim and silent faces. A TIE fighter screamed overhead, swooping low over familiar buildings. He was on Lothal, in Central City. In the plaza where the Empire Day celebrations were always held. And where… he turned around. 

He had been expecting to see a younger version of himself behind him, but the reality was far worse. Sabine, Hera and Zeb were on their knees in front of a line of stormtroopers, arms cuffed behind their backs, heads bowed. The troopers held their blasters at the ready, only waiting for the signal. The firing squad. Ezra remembered them from his own execution.

No. No this couldn’t be happening! This wasn’t real! If something like this had happened, he would have heard about it, he would have _known,_ he would have been able to… been able to… 

_Rescue them?_ he asked himself. _Is that what you would have done?_ He didn’t know. He didn’t… this hadn’t been part of the agreement. Kanan was dead, that meant the others would be _safe_ , it meant…

“Inquisitor,” someone said beside him. He turned again, and looked into the expectant, smirking face of Agent Kallus. Kallus raised his eyebrows, and gestured to the trio. “Such trouble these terrorists have caused,” Kallus said, looking at Hera and shaking his head in a mockery of sadness. “But with their deaths, you will be striking a blow for peace across the sector. Dissidents like them will think twice before daring to strike against the Empire and the safety of its citizens.” 

Ezra was holding a lightsaber. Not his own; one of the standard Inquisitorial models, impersonal, not attuned to him, but serviceable enough. Ezra looked down at it, then at Kallus. He had always hated Kallus, whose personal philosophy seemed to be the same as that of Tarkin - rule through fear, claiming that this was strength. He had gloated, _gloated_ , about the genocide of Zeb’s people, about the burning of Lasan. He would be pleased now wouldn’t he, to be able to finish the job. 

“Will you do the honours?”Kallus asked him “After all, it is you we have to thank for their capture, is it not?”

No. No, that couldn’t be true, even in this false version of reality that would _never_ be true, he would _never_ … 

_You killed Kanan_ , a voice said in his head, a voice sounding very much like Luke. _You really think you aren’t capable of this?_

“No,” Ezra said quietly. 

“I beg your pardon Inquisitor?” Kallus said.

_Don’t kill him either!_ Luke’s voice said quickly. _Remember what you warned me, about using the Dark Side here. It’s just an illusion. It’s just the Temple._

Ezra relaxed his hold on the Dark Side - he had barely been aware that he was drawing it to him. He had been moments from driving his lightsaber through Agent Kallus’ chest, from going on to slaughter every stormtrooper here just to keep his friends safe. His crew were his family, even now. 

_Yes, I would have gone to rescue them, if it had come to this,_ he admitted to himself. _I would have abandoned the Inquisitorius, I would have abandoned strength, the road to changing the galaxy, to removing people like Tarkin and Kallus from power… I would have given it all up for them._

And if these trials were useful for nothing else, they were useful in teaching him that much about himself. 

\-----

Vader strode through the temple corridors, his lightsaber held ready at his side. He could feel his son’s presence burning ahead of him, past a barrier in the Force that was _meant_ to turn away those not sufficiently trained for the trials that lay beyond it. That did not seem to have stopped Luke. Or perhaps he had the Twelfth Brother to thank for this? Aphra’s ship had been outside along with his son’s X-wing, but there had been no sign of the Inquisitor or his TIE. The TIE was likely elsewhere in the forest, but he could not feel the Inquisitor in the Force. Since he surely was not dead, the only possibility remaining was that he was close enough to Luke for the boy’s own Force presence to mask him. 

Why had the Twelfth Brother done this? Why had he helped Luke find the way into the Temple? - for although his son’s natural abilities were great, Vader strongly doubted they were enough to breach that barrier without _some_ form of guidance. It was not in his self-interest, and Vader _knew_ Aphra had made it very clear to the Inquisitor just whom she was working for. 

_She_ should have stopped this. That she had not was… _displeasing_. Even if she knew nothing of the Force, she knew not to trust an unknown factor like the Inquisitor. 

He had reached the barrier. When he passed it, no doubt the temple would attempt to test him, but he had no interest in the pitiful trials of the Jedi. They were immaterial to him; he was the Chosen One, his strength was unmatched by any in the galaxy save his Master. There was nothing they could show him that he had not already seen. There was an irony in that - it was only once he had left the path of the Jedi forever that he had lost all of the attachments that they would have had him cast aside; Kenobi, Padmé, their child… 

Except that he had not lost his son. The thought gave him a moment’s pause, but he knew himself to be stronger than any mere vision. If they attempted to trick him, to distract him from reaching Luke, then he would tear them apart with the power of the Dark Side. 

Vader stepped through the barrier, the Light Side retreating before him. Yet it did not stay away for long. It had simply paused to gather itself, too set in its habit of centuries to do anything but what the Jedi had commanded of it. The passage in front of him faded away, and he found himself… elsewhere. 

This was Tatooine - even had he not recognised the building in which he stood that much would have been obvious. It was in the taste of the dust-dry air, the golden sand that collected in every corner no matter how often the floors were swept, the particular quality of the light of the binary suns. Etra and Tyun, Justice and Vengeance in the slave tongue, the eggs of the Krayt dragon awaiting the moment of the great chain-breaking to hatch and unleash their wrath on all Masters. A foolish folktale. As a child he had dreamed of freeing slaves, of returning to Tatooine as a Jedi Master, of seeing the Hutts dead at his feet… but the Jedi had not cared what happened outside the boundaries of their weak Republic. The Senate was too corrupt. He had been forced to accept the truth of the matter - the existence of slavery was too profitable for any of these so-called civilized worlds to object to. Their mouths condemned it, whilst their pockets filled with credits. 

The Republic might have fallen, but the people had not changed. 

This vision was showing him the palace of Gardulla the Hutt. She was holding court here, surrounded by the smugglers, the slavers, the bounty-hunters, everyone who fawned in front of her throne hoping for the credits her favour could bring their way. In the shadows her house-slaves moved around almost unnoticed, ensuring a constant flow of food, water and spirits and cleaning up the inevitable mess left behind. Was his mother somewhere amongst these faces? Was he, as some version of his younger self?

Did the temple hope to provoke his anger by reminding him of this time? These memories were irrelevant. They belonged to the childhood of a man who was long dead and replaced by someone stronger. They had no power over him.

“ _I grow bored_ ,” Gardulla announced to the crowd in Huttese. “ _Bring me some entertainment_.”

Two guards dragged a struggling man forwards and forced him to his knees in front of the Hutt’s dais. He was certainly a slave, nearly naked, his back scarred with whip marks and with one leg that had been broken in the past and healed badly twisted. No doubt that was why he had been chosen - thus hampered, he was of limited use. Gardulla’s idea of _entertainment_ was one that habitually ended in death, and this man would not be a great loss to her. 

“ _Bets!_ ” Gardulla cried, lifting a little black rod in one hand. Such a deceptively simple device. One would not think, to look upon it, what threat it held. But he remembered it and could not stop his jaw from tensing with the sudden stab of anger. Shouting and laughter erupted from the crowd, hands waving credit chips in the air. The slave trembled. His face was not familiar. Yet Vader did not doubt this was a true memory, even if it struck no immediate chord within him. 

What did it matter? He had to find his son; he should not allow himself to be distracted by the meaningless things the temple chose to show him. He reached out for the Force, intending to shred this illusion and continue on.

“ _Betting is closed!_ ” Gardulla said as the shouting reached its fever-pitch, and pressed a button on the control rod. There was a dull thump, muffled by flesh and bone, and a wet slap as blood and meat hit the flagstones. A hole a handspan across had been torn from the slave’s left shoulder, detaching his arm with it. A ruin of ribs, muscles and pumping arterial blood was all that was left in the wake of the chip’s detonation. The Hutt laughed, belly-deep, joined by other voices mingled with curses from those who had guessed the location wrongly. 

Vader turned away. He had seen enough. 

Behind him a voice cried out.

“Father!”

He couldn’t stop himself from looking. Even though he knew it could not be real, that it would only be another lie. Luke lay on the sandstone floor in a spreading pool of blood, tears of pain running down his face. The arm that was left to him was reaching out, reaching towards him. 

With a shudder, the flagstones under Vader’s feet cracked and cratered. Pillars trembled. Gardulla’s court, those _scum_ , started to back away, then collapsed clawing at their throats. The Hutt herself, vast body quivering, started to rise into the air, eyes rolling, fat tongue lolling out…

The vision vanished. The last scraps of it disappeared in shreds of light and colour, torn apart in the hurricane of his wrath. He was left with nothing but dark stone and the harsh rasp of his respirator echoing from the walls. 

No. His son was alive, unharmed. Free. Grakkus had not had time to implant a chip. He was _so close_. 

Soon Luke would be his, and he would be _safe_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow Vader, it's almost as though the Force can tell you're still a bit sensitive about recent events, hmmm...


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke and Ezra see something they... maybe weren't supposed to see, and make some surprising discoveries before they finally reach the Temple's heart.

**19 BBY - Mustafar, Atravis Sector, Outer Rim**

Luke had no time to think about what he had just seen in Ezra’s vision, whether it had any basis in reality or not, because instead of fading back into the corridor in the temple, they had already been pushed into another of the visions. If the pattern held true, then this ought to be something connected to him, but nothing around about looked familiar. And he could see Ezra, feel his surprise and confusion, which he shouldn’t have been able to if this was one of his own tests. They were standing on a landing platform next to a beautiful silver yacht - Luke thought it might be a Nubian design - looking out over a landscape made of rock and fire. The sky overhead was dark with thick black clouds, lit from below by the flows of lava that seemed to ooze from every crevice in the broken hills and mountains that surrounded them. The yacht’s landing ramp was open, but there didn’t seem to be any sign of life. 

“This… this is Mustafar,” Ezra said beside him, eyes wide. “Why are we here? And… that’s not the Inquisitorius facility _I_ know.”

“Mustafar… you mentioned that name before,” Luke said. “That’s where the Inquisitors are trained, right?”

Ezra nodded. “I thought we’d be in another of your memories. It’s not mine - none of the buildings look the same.”

“But the Force - the temple - it’s showing us this for a reason. Perhaps it’s a warning…” Luke didn’t get a chance to complete his thought. At that moment, there was a shudder in the Force, like some sort of intangible explosion. Even the vision itself moved with it, becoming fuzzy and indistinct for a brief moment before reforming. As it did so, a figure came down the ramp of the ship behind them. Luke turned to look, thinking perhaps he or Ezra might know them, that that would be the connection, but something was wrong. He couldn’t see her face. It was almost as though the vision was acting like a corrupted holotape, showing bits and pieces but unable to put the whole thing together. He looked at Ezra, but the Inquisitor seemed just as confused as he was. 

Another figure came running towards them from the buildings, if anything even more indistinct. All that seemed to be there was a dark shadow, a smudge on the air. The two embraced and then began speaking in low voices. Luke approached them warily, but he might as well have been invisible for all the notice they took of him. 

“This doesn’t seem… right,” he said. 

“It’s not,” Ezra replied. “This isn’t a memory and it doesn’t seem like a test… so what is it? Why show it to us?”

The two figures no longer seemed to be just talking, but arguing. Their body language had become stiff and angry. The taller one, the dark shadow, raised an arm… Once again, a shudder passed through the Force, through the vision. It shook the two figures apart into nothingness and left merely the landing platform and the ship, as empty and lifeless as they had been before. Luke shivered. This was starting to be more than a little bit creepy. 

“Does the temple want something from us?” he asked. “Are we meant to be doing something?”

“I have no idea,” Ezra replied, sounding just as frustrated as Luke felt. 

Luke was growing more and more uneasy. What if there was something wrong with the trials, with the temple? What if after all these years without being used, without any Jedi here to look after it, it had malfunctioned somehow, gotten stuck in some kind of loop - as even the best AI programming he knew sometimes did - and they were going to be stuck here? Not that he really believed the Force worked like that, but now that the thought had occurred to him it was proving difficult to shift. 

Then there was movement again. A man in a dirty white tunic and trousers came jogging up a set of stairs Luke hadn’t previously noticed, heading towards the ship. Whatever strange effect that had been earlier, it didn’t seem to be affecting _him_. No, Luke could make out his features as he came closer and he seemed… very familiar. But familiar how? His gaze dropped to the lightsaber strapped to the man’s belt, and then his mind made the connection. 

“Ben?”

But Ben was no more able to hear him than the figures earlier. He looked… he looked weary beyond belief. And he was younger; a lot younger. His hair was still ginger, and his face had none of the lines that age and Tatooine’s weather would one day give it. He headed towards the ship and disappeared inside. 

“Kenobi…” Ezra too was staring at Ben, with a dawning familiarity. 

“How do you know Ben Kenobi?” Luke asked him suspiciously.

“Ben? That’s Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Ezra replied, frowning at him. “I saw him on a Jedi holocron once. I assumed he’d died a long time ago, but if _you_ know him…”

The reminder and the pain that came with it hit Luke like a slap in the face. He didn’t _want_ to tell Ezra anything about Ben - it would feel wrong, telling this Imperial, this _Sith_ , about any of it. As though he were dirtying Ben’s memory somehow. But what if he had to, what if it was important somehow to why they were seeing this? He swallowed past the sudden dry lump in his throat. 

“He lived… near me, on Tatooine, while I was growing up. After my Aunt and Uncle were killed, we left, and he taught me for a little while. Darth Vader… murdered him, on the Death Star.”

“There were rumours about that,” Ezra said, looking thoughtful. “So it was Master Kenobi… I heard stories about him from when he was a General during the Clone Wars. Kenobi and…” He stopped speaking suddenly.

“What?” Luke asked suspiciously. 

“The ramp is closing,” Ezra pointed out, although that was certainly _not_ what he had been going to say. “I have a feeling we should be on that ship.”

“Fine,” Luke said, following him as he started to run. It wasn’t far; in a moment they were on the yacht, and the ramp hissed closed behind them. 

“Now what were you really going to say?” Luke asked, before Ezra could wander away into the ship and find something happening to distract him from the question. 

“I can’t tell you,” Ezra said. 

“You mean you don’t _want_ to tell me.”

“I mean if I do tell you something terrible will happen to me.”

Luke stared at him. He was not entirely certain how much he should trust his impressions of the Force given how strange this vision had been so far, but from what he could tell, Ezra seemed to be sincere. Which made nothing any clearer. 

“Don’t ask me any more,” Ezra said. “For both our sakes. Now, come on. I want to see what Kenobi is doing on this ship.”

For the moment at least, Luke was willing to do that, if only because of how serious Ezra seemed to be about this. But that certainly didn’t mean that the subject was closed - he _would_ be asking about it again once they got out of here. 

The yacht wasn’t big - at the moment they were standing in a small ante-chamber that would also undoubtedly function as an airlock in vacuum conditions. Ezra touched a few controls on the panel beside the inner door, and it slid aside with a gentle hiss to reveal a larger room that stretched the length of the vessel with a stair in the center leading up to the cockpit. Kenobi was standing at the edge of a bed to one side of the room. Someone was lying there, asleep or unconscious. The woman from earlier! Luke recognised her from her clothes at least. Although… this time it didn’t look as though her face was being concealed by that strange effect. Two droids also stood nearby - and they were familiar too!

“Isn’t that the droid that shot me in the back?” Ezra asked, pointing to the little white-and-blue astromech. 

“Yes, that’s Artoo,” Luke replied, amazed. He had never been entirely clear if Artoo’s claim of once belonging to Ben had been true, or just a convenient fabrication to allow him to pass on Leia’s message. But it seemed that the little droid really had been telling the truth. And the other one… that was C3P0! Had they _both_ belonged to Kenobi before they had - presumably - been given to the Rebel Alliance?

“So he was Kenobi’s before he was yours? I suppose that explains why he’s so vicious,” Ezra muttered under his breath. 

“That’s unfair,” Luke told him, glaring. Artoo wasn’t vicious! He was just… protective. And more than capable of doing something about his protectiveness. He was about to say something more, but then the woman stirred slightly, and Ben reached out to touch her shoulder as she began to wake. Luke moved nearer, hoping that this time they would be able to hear something that might explain what was going on here. The woman was pregnant, he realised. Earlier he hadn’t been able to tell, but was that because of the Force effect or were the two parts of the vision actually separated in time?

“Obi-Wan…” the woman said, turning her head to look up at Ben. “Is Anakin alright?”

Luke felt as if all the breath had been knocked out of him. Anakin… his father… it could have been a coincidence, there had to be thousands of people with that name in the galaxy, but in these circumstances a coincidence was beyond unlikely. Here was the connection they’d been looking for - not only Ben Kenobi, but something to do with his father as well! Which must mean… this was his mother!

Luke stared at her. He felt like he was trying to drink in every little detail about her, the smallest thing about her appearance, her face, her eyes… did they look alike? It wouldn’t have crossed his mind before, not without this realisation to make him look, but… maybe there was something. Or maybe it was just that he _wanted_ them to look alike. And if she was pregnant then… she must be pregnant with him! 

Ben put a comforting hand against his mother’s face, but he said nothing. Luke couldn’t see his face from where he stood, but… he remembered all too well the expression that had been on it earlier. He knew what this had to mean. He knew what this memory, this vision, had to be about. 

This was the aftermath of his father’s death. 

That’s where Ben had been, that’s what he’d seen to make him look so defeated. He had just watched Darth Vader - his former pupil - murder Anakin Skywalker. 

As Ben moved away, climbing the stairs to the cockpit, the vision wavered around them. Then gradually it disappeared, and they were back in the darkness of the Temple. Luke looked over at Ezra, who had a thoughtful expression on his face - what little could be seen of it in the very dim light. 

Luke didn’t really feel like talking to him, didn’t feel like discussing what they had just seen. He didn’t want to analyse why the temple had shown him that. And what had that first part been about? He was sure now that the first figure, the woman, had been his mother. But the other? Could _that_ have been his father? If so, what had they been arguing about? Perhaps about Vader. His father must have wanted to go and fight him… He wasn’t exactly happy to have seen the vision, but the opportunity to see his mother’s face, to hear her voice, for the first time in his life… that felt like a gift. If only it could have been from a happier time! A time when perhaps his father might have been there too, and Luke could have seen to two of them, together… 

He sighed. No, the temple wouldn’t have shown them something like that. It wasn’t going to show them happy things, not when there was no lesson to be learned from them. What had the lesson been from that… perhaps only to warn him about the consequences of the Dark Side. Of turning against the Jedi way, as Vader had done. 

Well the Temple and the Force had nothing to worry about. He would never let himself become _anything_ like Vader.

\----

Obi-Wan was here. Padmé had betrayed him. Rage boiled inside him, bringing the power of the Force with it. Palpatine had been right - he had never felt as strong as he did in these moments since he had allowed his feelings free reign. His anger and pain didn’t make him weaker, as the Jedi had told him. They had lied, they had lied for _years_ , and they would have taken Padme away from him! Even Obi-Wan had lied, and now he was here, now he had turned Padme, the only person who really _mattered_ away from him! What had he said to her, to make her think this way? 

His fist was clenched in the air, wrapping the Force around it. He could feel his fingers digging into flesh, digging _through_ flesh, closing up her throat. No more. No more words, no more of Kenobi’s lies coming out of her mouth. Every sentence had been a knife stabbing into him and he couldn’t…

_No!_ His own voice, inside his head. _Stop! This wasn’t what you wanted!_

His grip loosened. Padme collapsed to the ground, unmoving. 

_She’s dead,_ a part of himself whispered. _You’ve killed her_. You _killed her._

_No. No, I didn’t. I_ couldn’t have. 

Because Luke existed. Luke was alive, and that meant that Padme could not have died in this moment. However her death had truly come about, it had not been by his own hand. This was the temple, showing him no more than another Jedi lie, like all the other lies that had come before it. 

_Enough of this,_ he thought, and turned his anger against the vision itself once more, tearing it asunder. It was irrelevant. He needed to find his son, and then they could leave this place. 

\----

_‘The kid is Luke Skywalker’._ That’s what Aphra had told him. Things were starting to come together in Ezra’s mind. Seeing Kenobi had allowed him to remember where he’d heard the name Skywalker before; it was from those rare occasions he’d been able to get Kanan to talk about the time before the Empire, during the Clone Wars. Kenobi and Skywalker. The Negotiator and the Hero With No Fear. Two Jedi who had been the heroes and idols of the Republic, Generals without peer. Where they went, armies were shattered, navies destroyed, and Separatists fell. They had seemed unstoppable. At least, that’s what Kanan had told him. It might have all been Jedi propaganda, Republic propaganda. But either way it would have to have some basis in fact. Those two had been Jedi of a different order, far more powerful than Kanan, than even Fulcrum. The sort of Jedi only a Lord of the Sith could have a hope of defeating. 

No wonder Luke was so strong, if he was Skywalker’s son. No wonder it had taken Lord Vader personally to see to his father’s death. And no wonder he had this connection with Kenobi, although it was strange how little he had been taught by him. Ezra would have thought this padawan - no doubt intended to be the instrument of the Jedi’s revenge - would have been trained from birth in the ways of the Jedi, brought up completely brainwashed by their philosophy. But that hadn’t happened. Why? 

And why had Skywalker had a child in the first place? Surely a Jedi as dedicated and powerful as that would have been equally devoted to their ideals, including the ones about attachment?

It didn’t really matter, Ezra decided. What mattered was that he was here, now, little more than a padawan, and walking straight into Lord Vader’s trap. After they finished up here in the Temple, all Ezra needed to do was make sure he continued on that path, that Aphra was free to follow him back to the Rebels and free to contact Lord Vader with that information. Then that would be the end of it, and the end of the Jedi’s secret weapon as well. 

He’d almost slipped up in there, almost revealed that he knew Luke’s last name even though Luke had never mentioned it. That would have been disastrous. But at the moment it looked like Luke had too much else on his mind to pursue that particular question. Good. Ezra hoped the temple and its secrets would continue to keep him sufficiently distracted. They couldn’t be too far from the center now. The way ahead felt clear, no fogging in the Force, no hint of any other traps. 

And indeed, after a short while following Luke on down the passage, the walls suddenly opened up all around them. Thin beams of light slanting down from slits in a ceiling that was far above them illuminated a large chamber. Slender, elegant pillars rose up in two rows ahead, with statues interspersed between them. Various heavy blast doors were set into the walls to either side, sealed shut. Ezra could feel the wonder that bloomed through Luke’s mind. 

“Wow,” Skywalker said softly. “This is…”

“Everything you imagined?” Ezra asked him. 

“I don't know what I imagined,” Luke replied. Whatever dark thoughts had been weighing on him had entirely vanished, at least for the moment. “It feels so peaceful.”

That was one way of putting it. The Light Side of the Force was strong here, and its placid stillness could be called peaceful, although it was no kind of peace that Ezra wanted. To him this place felt silent, watchful… unbearable. He hoped they would be able to find whatever Luke wanted here quickly and then get out as soon as possible. 

“What do you think is behind all these doors?” Luke asked, approaching one of them. His hand reached forwards to touch it, fingers brushing the cold metal. 

“Jedi artefacts, I assume,” Ezra replied. “Relics of previous Knights and Masters. Their knowledge. This place is clearly untouched.”

Luke whirled to face him, eyes narrowed. “Don’t go getting any ideas,” he said. “I’m not letting you destroy _anything_ in here!”

“I wasn’t thinking about it,” Ezra admitted, although he really should have been. It was his duty, after all. 

“Ah,” said a voice behind him. “Here you are. And all in one piece too.” It was Aphra, looking relieved to see them both. The astromech droid - Artoo - was by her side, beeping inquisitively. Ezra found himself almost glad to see her as well, if only because her presence would mean getting out of here all the sooner. 

“Aphra!” Luke grinned. “You didn't run into any problems did you?”

“Nope,” she said. “And you seem to have survived these trials of yours too.”

“Just about,” Luke replied, various conflicting emotions passing across his face - and through his mind. “Anyway, I was hoping you might be able to give us a hand with these doors? I think that might be more your speciality. And Artoo might be able to help as well.”

“I can’t deny it, I’m good at breaking into places” Aphra said, shrugging. She dropped her pack by the entrance and came over to have a look at the heavy durasteel door and its control interface. “This is pretty old tech. Luckily old tech is my speciality.” She popped the control panel out of the wall with a tool from her belt, and after a surprisingly short span of time spent tinkering with the wiring underneath, the doors slid open with a grinding whirr that spoke of decades without being used. 

At first darkness hid whatever was inside, but it took only the touch of another wire for Aphra to bring up the lights, revealing a row of smaller statues on either side of the door, each with their hands held cupped in front of them. Ezra could feel how the Light Side gathered here with even greater strength, drawn by whatever these statues held. Luke walked forwards into the room with the exaggerated slowness of a sleepwalker, his eyes wide and wonder pouring from him. His menace of an astromech droid followed him, bleeping curiously. 

“These must have been old Jedi Masters,” Skywalker said, mostly to himself. 

“Listen, you,” Aphra hissed, too quietly for Luke to hear, rising from her crouch and grabbing Ezra’s arm. “What game do you think you’re playing, bringing the kid in here? When Vader finds out that you did this…”

“No harm came to him,” Ezra replied quickly, and just as quietly. “You told me to answer his questions, and that’s what I’m doing.” He was antagonising her and he knew it, it was just that the words seemed to come out of his mouth without his brain getting in the way. As her glare bored into him, he realised he was full of a kind of elated fear - knowing he had done something very foolish and would probably die because of it, but in the meantime he had done just what he _himself_ wanted, which was a rare thing in his life. 

“Even if you delivered this kriffing Jedi rubbish to Lord Vader personally that wouldn’t be enough to save you,” Aphra said. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Ezra said. “It’s done now. And if you want to keep up your own cover, you’d better start showing an interest in this ‘Jedi rubbish’ as well - after all, that’s credits in your pocket, isn't it?”

Aphra let go of him with a rough shove, her glare practically hot enough to melt durasteel. “I should hand you over to Triple-Zero,” she said, although what she meant by that he had no idea. He took a wary step back just in case she decided to punch him, cover be damned. 

“I think you should open that door next,” Ezra said, pointing indiscriminately. Or perhaps not so indiscriminately. As he turned his attention towards the direction his finger had landed on, he felt the Force… change there. There was a shadow dwelling behind that door, something that did not feel entirely like the Dark Side but certainly not like the Light either. Could the Jedi have something else hidden here? Could they have some kind of artefact of the Sith? It wasn’t impossible - such things were often made to be difficult to destroy, and the old Order had thought it best to keep them wrapped up under lock and key where no unsuspecting Force-sensitive could get their hands on them by mistake. 

Was this why the Dark Side had wanted him to help Luke? Because he would find this in here?

“My _cover_ doesn’t include taking orders from _you_ ,” Aphra said in a fierce whisper. “You’re the bad guy here, remember? _I_ am a simple, innocent smuggler who has taken a shine to our little Rebel pilot…”

“You two aren’t fighting are you?” Luke said from the doorway to the side-room. Ezra and Aphra jumped away from each other. 

“Of course not,” Ezra said quickly, before Aphra could get a word in edgeways. “Your friend here was just telling me she might be able to get that door over there open too.”

“That is _not_ what I said you little piece of…”

“Oh, hey,” Luke interrupted. “That might be a good idea actually. That room does feel… different somehow.” He frowned, clearly trying to analyse what he was feeling. Ezra hoped he wouldn’t work it out. The kid probably wouldn’t be best pleased to be helping the Sith - but he didn’t have to know. And if he ended up taking a Dark Side holocron and using it, all the better!

“Fine,” Aphra said, able to admit when she’d been beaten. “But I make no promises kid. That lock looks a lot trickier than the first one.”

“I’m sure you’ll try your best,” Luke said. “And Artoo will help.” He was so kriffing _trusting_. Ezra could understand why - Aphra herself didn’t actually mean him any harm and so the Force wouldn’t be giving him any signals - but still! Even if she had been nothing more than what she claimed to be it wouldn’t have been a good idea to trust her! Ezra knew _plenty_ about the self-interest of criminals - he had been one himself, a very long time ago. 

“I’ll manage without the droid’s help,” Aphra said. That was a good way for her to play it, Ezra thought with some irritation. Pretend it was just because of professional pride, and not because she had no particular desire to open that door at all.

Aphra went over to start work on the blast door, the astromech warbling sadly at her, leaving Ezra and Luke standing in a slightly awkward silence. 

“How exactly are you planning on taking all of this stuff out of here anyway?” Ezra asked after a moment. “There’s too much here for you to carry.”

“I’m going to be relying on Aphra a lot,” Luke admitted. “And I hope the Force will tell me what it’s most important for me to take. I know Aphra doesn’t care about the Jedi, but if I promise her that the Rebel Alliance will give her a better price for all this than any of the collectors out there…”

“You’re going to be disappointed,” Ezra said. “All of this, the Jedi way… anyone who hasn’t been brainwashed by them should be able to see it for what it is. You shouldn’t be looking to follow in their footsteps.”

“I’m following in my _father’s_ footsteps,” Luke replied. His determination was solid and steady, like a fixed point in the Force. Ezra’s arguments alone would never be enough to convince him. 

“Never mind,” he said. “You’ll change your mind, or you won’t. If you do, I have no doubt the Inquisitorius would welcome you as one of us. If not…”

“If you’re talking about Vader, I’m going to kill him first,” Luke said. He really did mean it too. Didn’t he know the first thing about Lord Vader? He wouldn’t stand a chance. 

But there was no use in trying to convince Luke of anything, not once he’d already made up his mind. Ezra hadn’t known him very long, but it had been long enough to work that much out. He sighed. “I’m… going to watch Aphra work,” he said. 

“Fine,” Luke relied. “Just… try not to antagonise her.”

\----

**0 ABY - YT-1300 _Millenium Falcon_ , Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim**

 

“I think we’ve lost them,” Han said over the internal comms, bringing the _Falcon_ down out of the cloud cover. Leia unclipped herself from the gunner’s seat and started to climb back up towards the cockpit. He seemed to be right; there was no sign of any of the _Starfall’s_ TIE fighters. Some she had managed to destroy, the others seemed to have given up. If she had been their commander, she would have had them flying a search grid around the temple - their only logical destination - but she could only hope that the Imps would leave them for Vader to deal with. 

“How far now?” she asked, once she had reached Han’s side again. 

“Ten kliks. Not long.”

They were passing over a landscape of rivers and small islands thick with trees. Heavy mist floated over the water. Ahead were high hills; their best guess at where Vader’s ship had touched down, based on his last position before he entered the cloud cover. The fact that she could just make out a number of towers rising from the forest up there only confirmed that her hunch had been correct. This was the place. 

Han made a pass over the temple first, just to let them see the courtyard out front, crowded with ships. Luke’s, Vader’s… and another she didn’t recognise. The one belonging to this ‘Twelfth Brother’? It hardly looked Imperial, more like a smuggler’s vessel with that worn paintwork and unusual configuration. Still, there was no sign of anyone out here, which meant that they just might be able to sneak on board that yacht and disable some vital systems. 

“Where’s Vader, that’s what I want to know?” Han said. “Luke better still be in one piece, or _I’m_ going to kill him!”

“Focus on one thing at a time,” Leia told him. “Sabotage the ship, _then_ we can find Luke.”

The temple courtyard was large, but not that large. They would need to find somewhere else to set down, which wouldn’t be easy in this terrain. But they would have to make it soon. There was no guarantee how long Vader would stay inside that temple, and they had to cut off his route of escape before the battle group arrived. It would be cutting it close, whatever way you looked at it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week will be a Very Merry Sithmas.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone arrives at the same place, and the truth is revealed. 
> 
> Merry Sithmas everyone!

**0 ABY - the Temple’s heart, Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim**

Luke could understand where Aphra was coming from. She was running from the Empire; she had good reason to dislike one of its agents, and he wasn’t naive - he knew very well the kind of life smugglers lived. It wasn’t one which had much understanding of mercy. He’d been lucky to grow up as isolated as he had on Tatooine. In the cities violence became a reflex, one triggered by the least bit of a threat. He’d seen people come to blows over the price of a meal at the market. Not many were quite as bad as that man who had picked a fight with him in the Mos Eisley bar for no apparent reason - he had honestly not been expecting _that_ \- but although Aphra was closer in character to Han than that guy, he didn’t kid himself. Han had killed people before, when he’d needed to. 

Only… it didn’t _have_ to be like that. Tatooine was the way it was because of the Hutts, but there were plenty of worlds out there where things were different. And Ezra might be an Inquisitor, a Sith, an Imperial, but Luke had seen something more complicated than that in the temple visions. He didn’t have to _like_ it, but Ezra did have his reasons. He was still a person. One who had shown that he could be trusted at least a little. 

Aphra didn’t have any need to worry. 

Besides, some part of Luke did have to be thankful to Ezra for showing him how to reach this place. The centre of the temple was… well, he didn’t know what he had expected, but this place lived up to his highest hopes. The world felt… still. Peaceful. Calm. It made all his worries feel a little further away. Here, the Force seemed to say, anything is possible. Just relax and… be. 

In the little room that Aphra had unlocked, that feeling seemed particularly concentrated. There were holocrons in here, and lightsabers, and datacards, and other things that were more mysterious; curls of beads, strange medallions, scraps of fabric that might have been part of clothing… All these things left behind by Jedi who were long gone. History stretching back… who knew how many years! 

He missed Ben. Ben had been a real Jedi, not him. Ben would have known what to do with these artifacts. He would have known which ones were the most important, the most in need of saving. He would have known the meaning behind them. 

Luke had known _of_ Ben for what seemed like his whole life, but he had only _known_ him so briefly… and yet it still hurt so much that he was gone. Ben had offered him… hope. Hope of something more than a life on Tatooine, hope of finding out more about his father, hope of making a difference in the galaxy. 

He sighed, hanging his head. Ben was gone and nothing could bring him back. He had heard his voice, from time to time in the months after his death, but that hadn’t happened for some while now. Maybe he should accept that that voice had only been what he wanted to hear, rather than something real. 

Ben would have wanted him to become a Jedi in truth. He would have wanted him to kill Darth Vader, for all the evil he had brought into the world. He should focus on here and now, and do his best to make Ben proud. 

Artoo nudged his leg, beeping quietly. Luke patted the little droid, smiling. “I’m alright Artoo,” he said. “I just… needed a moment.” Artoo warbled in reply. It _was_ pretty soothing, Luke had to admit. He pushed what remained of his feelings away and went back through to the main chamber to check on Aphra’s progress with the second door. She was kneeling next to it with her hands buried in a mess of wires, ignoring Ezra leaning against a nearby pillar and watching. So they _could_ get on for five minutes without killing each other. 

And then Ezra leapt bolt upright, looking towards the passage they had entered from with sheer terror on his face. A chill went through Luke, a biting cold, and a harsh and all too familiar rasping filled his ears. He turned. 

Darth Vader was standing there - _here,_ how can he be _here,_ said the thought that flashed through Luke’s mind - his lightsaber drawn, the noise of his respirator seeming to fill the entire room. The blank, insectile eyes of his mask were fixed on Luke and the weight of his attention was pushing down all around him in the Force, suffocating. 

Behind him, the door Aphra had been working on slid open with a hiss. Luke faintly heard the sound of her getting to her feet, the noise of satisfaction she made, but he felt frozen in place, unable to turn to look at her or speak to warn her. Artoo had started beeping frantically, but his alerts were far too late.

“Aphra,” Vader said, and… what? He knew her _name_? “You have a great deal to explain to me.”

“Oh, hi boss,” Aphra said brightly. She wasn’t even really afraid that Luke could sense. More… confused. And resigned. “I absolutely can do that. You see, it’s all to do with your ronto-headed Inquisitor here and his complete inability to follow orders. _I_ was just trying to keep my cover intact.”

She was… she was _working_ for Vader? Luke was paralysed by the shock, both of Aphra’s words and by the fact that Vader was actually standing in front of him. How had he known? How had he tracked Luke here? And Aphra… the Force had told him that she didn’t mean him any harm! Except… except that not meaning any harm didn’t mean that she had his best interests at heart. She had just been here to delay him, hadn’t she! Stop him from finding out about the Jedi and make sure he stayed in one place for long enough for Vader to get here and kill him personally! He thought he might actually be sick. It felt as though someone had punched him in the stomach. He had _trusted_ her - because of the Force, and because she reminded him of Han.

He unhooked his lightsaber from his belt. So Vader was here. Then it just meant they would have to fight sooner than Luke had planned. He might not have much chance of winning, but he still had to _try_. Perhaps he would get lucky. Besides, what were his other options? Just to give up and let Vader cut him down? 

“Although I wasn’t expecting you to show up so soon,” Aphra continued. 

“The Inspector is no longer of any concern,” Vader told her, his helmet still turned in Luke’s direction. It was impossible to tell just where he was looking behind the dark lenses, but Luke could still sense that he was watching him. But Vader’s saber hadn’t moved, and although the Dark Side was all around them like a thick blanket thrown over the world, heavy with a terrible anger, none of it seemed to be aimed at Luke. What was he waiting for? Did he want Luke to attack him first? “As for the Twelfth Brother…”

Vader’s hand rose in that too-familiar gesture. Ezra let out a choked cry, and he was pulled forwards to hang in mid-air in front of the monstrous figure in black,, clawing at his throat. The fist tightened. “Let us see what you know,” Vader said. Ezra’s eyes went wide, and then rolled back in his head as he screamed - or tried to. The strangled noise that was all that managed to escape his throat was horrible to hear. 

He couldn’t just let this happen, Luke realised. Ezra had _helped_ him, had gone against Vader’s wishes to do so, and he didn’t deserve any of this! He _had_ to help! And what better time to make a move than when Vader was distracted? 

His lightsaber ignited with a hiss and Luke leapt forwards, aiming straight at Vader’s chest. For a moment he actually thought it might work, that Vader was too engaged in whatever he was doing to Ezra to notice, but almost faster than he could see it move the red blade snapped up and met his own with an angry buzz. Vader took a step back, letting Ezra drop so that he could face Luke properly. 

“Do not be foolish, child,” he said. Did that voice - distorted as it was by the vocoder - sound almost exasperated? “Do not attempt to fight me. The Force is with you, but you are not a Jedi yet.”

“I don’t care!” Luke yelled, trying another lunge. Vader batted it to one side with ease. “Do you think I’m just going to lie down and die?” 

“ _That_ is the last thing I would expect from Skywalker’s son.”

“How dare you even say my father’s _name!_ ” He wasn’t thinking anymore; it didn’t matter that he had promised himself he wouldn’t react like this again, he couldn’t stop himself. Not with Vader right in front of him. He could only attack, over and over again, even though Vader parried each and every one, barely seeming to move. “You don’t have the _right_ to say his name, you _killed him!_ ”

“I did _not_ ,” Vader snapped, giving a sudden shove as their blades met again. Not expecting the strength behind it Luke staggered back, falling to the ground beside Ezra - who didn’t seem to be conscious, but was at least still breathing. His lightsaber was knocked out of his hand, and then Aphra was there, kicking it away. Luke cursed, trying to scramble after it, but Aphra planted a boot against his shoulder and pushed him back. 

“Aphra!” Vader growled. “The boy is _mine_.”

“Apologies my lord,” Aphra said, backing off and looking contrite. “I didn’t mean to interfere.”

“Obi-Wan lied to you,” Vader said, addressing Luke again. “about many things.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that?” Luke asked, slowly getting to his feet when it appeared Vader wasn’t about to kill him immediately. “From _you_?”

“You have only to touch the Force to know that it is true.”

Perhaps, but he had thought the same thing with Aphra. He’d thought she was telling the truth, because the Force told him her intentions were pure. And maybe to her they had been, but that hadn’t stopped her being a liar, from betraying him. Yet he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out. He _didn’t_ believe it, but some part of him however small wanted to _know_. The Dark Side was everywhere, like ice just under his skin, but he could still feel the Light Side, even if it seemed so very far away. And the Force itself was singing, all of it singing with an utter confusion of emotion that didn’t seem to be coming from _anyone_ here. It was as though the whole world held its breath. 

“Then who _did_ kill him?” Luke demanded. “One of your _Inquisitors_?”

“No,” Vader said. “He still lives.”

“ _You’re lying!_ ” But hope flickered inside Luke’s chest, even though he knew, _he knew_ , it couldn’t be true. If it was, where had his father been all these years? What reason could Ben have had not to tell him the truth? His father was _dead_ , as much as every part of him wished he wasn’t. 

“Luke,” Vader said, slowly, as though hesitating. “ _I_ am your father.”

“ _Holy Sith!_ ” Aphra yelped, although Luke barely heard her or Artoo’s accompanying beeps of shock over the roaring in his ears. 

“No,” he said, pleading against the way that the Force itself was crying out in joy, in triumph, in love and pain and a reflection of his own horror. “No. That’s not true. That’s _impossible_.”

Vader said nothing. He didn’t have to. Not when what the Force was telling him was so inescapable. 

Luke’s eyes burned, and all the strength seemed to have gone out of him. He knew he was crying, but he couldn’t seem to stop. He sank to his knees - it was all he could do not to fall over. How…? _How_ could this be true? His father had been a _hero,_ he had been Ben’s _friend_ \- that’s what the old man had told him. But he had lied about his father’s death, so who knew what else he might have lied about? Why had he done it? How could Ben have let him find out like this? 

Or perhaps he had been hoping that Luke would _never_ find out. Had Ben wanted him to kill his own father? Without knowing it? He was going to be sick… no, no he wouldn’t let himself. He was stronger than this, he _was_ , he was going to _face_ the truth, not hide from it! But right now… right now he couldn’t even look at Vader, his… his father…

Out of every sentient being in the galaxy, why did it have to be Vader? The monster, the durasteel fist of the Empire, the Emperor’s right hand, the executioner… his aunt and uncle had died on his own father’s orders… did Vader even _know?_ Had he even _cared?_ He had murdered them, he had tortured Princess Leia personally, he had killed so many of the Rebellion’s fighters as they attempted to run the Death Star’s trenches including Biggs, Luke’s _best friend._

And he would have killed Luke there too, if it hadn’t been for Han. Just as he would have killed him on Cymoon I not so long ago. So what had changed? 

Or… had he somehow not known? 

What… what if his father _hadn’t_ known? Didn’t that make the only sense? Why else show him mercy now when it had always been lacking before. 

“Luke,” Vader said, holding out his hand. “It is time to accept the destiny that Kenobi hid from you. I will teach you the ways of the Dark Side and together we will defeat the Emperor, and rule the galaxy as father and son.”

“That is _not_ my destiny,” Luke gasped, fighting the tightness in his throat that threatened to make his voice crack and waver. “I want _nothing_ to do with the Dark Side! I will _not_ become a Sith!”

“You do not have a choice, child. Without the strength of the Dark Side it is _impossible_ to defeat the Emperor.”

“So why haven’t _you_ killed him if that’s true?” Luke spat. He felt his father hesitate.

“I cannot do it alone,” Vader said. 

Did his father really think this was what he wanted? Power? He wanted the Emperor gone, yes, but not so that he could rule in his place! He was fighting because of what the Empire did to people and planets across the galaxy every day. He was fighting because of what the Sith had done to his parents… or… what he’d _thought_ they had done. Luke felt as though the bedrock of his foundations had been washed out from underneath him. Suddenly everything that spun off from that truth seemed on shaky ground. 

No. No, just think about it for longer than a second. Just because his father was alive and was the figure he had feared and hated, that did not change anything Vader had done, or that the Empire had done. All of it, it was still _wrong._ But he knew now that there was no way he would ever be able to kill Vader. He… he no longer _wanted_ to.

“And if I still refuse to become a Sith?” he asked. 

Vader _snarled_. “Then the moment Sidious learns of your existence you will die!”

It was almost impossible to get any sense of his father through the Force - when Luke tried reaching out all he could feel was a vast and raging emptiness like looking into a Dune Seas sandstorm - and yet… it was almost as though he could feel _fear._ Was that actually real, or simply his imagination? If his father was offering this, even if Luke didn’t want it, didn’t that mean he _had_ to care for him in some way? If Luke didn’t mean anything to him, then surely he would have killed him by now - wasn’t Luke a Rebel, hadn’t he destroyed the Death Star? 

“There _has_ to be another way,” he said quietly. 

“There is _not,”_ Vader said. “You _must_ come with me. _Now._ ”

Luke hung his head. He was too tired to argue. Maybe later he would be able to fight again, would be able to persuade his father of… of something. But right now, he was alone, without any allies, and with no-one coming to save him. There wasn’t any way to escape. Vader was right - one way or another, he would be going with him. Might as well do it on his own feet. 

“Yes,” he said.

\-----

The Skywalker kid was... what? Aphra could barely believe it. After all that nonsense with getting into the heart of the temple it had been practically a relief to see Lord Vader, even if she had _really_ been hoping he would never actually find out about this whole mess. But then he went and said something like _that_? How was that even possible? _Vader,_ have a _child_? He didn’t seem the type. But then what did she or anyone really know about who he had been before the Empire? She had done her research - of course she had, she’d been about to start working for the guy - and Darth Vader had simply appeared as the Emperor’s right hand not long after the Jedi Purges. It was common knowledge that he had been injured in the Emperor’s service severely enough to need the life-support in his suit, but no-one knew how, or when, or who he had been before that. There was no mention of a Darth Vader in the records of the Old Republic. 

Skywalker had said his father had been a Jedi. Was that true, or just something he had been told - probably by this ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ who Vader seemed so angry about. 

And as for the kid himself… he wasn’t exactly taking this well. In fact that was putting it mildly, not that Aphra could really blame him. This was one kriffing hell of a truth to find out about, and he was a _Rebel._ Which meant, an idealist with all sorts of ridiculous notions about how the galaxy should be run, barely in touch with the real world. Luke and Vader couldn’t be more different. And clearly Luke hadn’t had the faintest idea about who his father really was before this moment. Hell, he’d grown up on Tatooine hadn’t he, and it would be difficult to find a place any further from the bright heart of Imperial power. So what was behind all that? Something to do with the Jedi, it seemed. Had they stolen the boy, kidnapped him when he was young, taken him to turn into one of their weapons? 

If the stories about them had anything to say about it, it seemed more than possible. 

A lot of things were falling into place now. Finding Skywalker… it had never been about the prestige of capturing or killing the pilot who destroyed the Death Star at all. It had been about finding Vader’s son! And as she listened to Lord Vader’s words, Aphra couldn’t help but be even more impressed at the audacity of it all. Overthrowing the Emperor, taking his place… she had known that she’d been drawn into something big but even at her most imaginative she hadn’t thought it would be a plan as ambitious as _this_! 

Gradually Skywalker - or perhaps she should be thinking of him as Vader Junior? - seemed to be coming around to accepting the truth. He no longer looked as though he was about to keel over at any second. No, there was that stubbornness appearing again that had been giving her so much trouble. The fire was coming back into his eyes - just embers for now, but Aphra was sure he would be back to his usual infuriating self soon enough. 

Hah! Let his father deal with that from now on - it should be entertaining to watch! _She_ wouldn’t have to worry about it any more. 

Luke got to his feet with the controlled breathing of someone trying to keep his emotions under wraps. He looked down at the Inquisitor, still lying where Vader had dropped him - and still alive from the looks of things.

“What are you going to do with him?” the kid asked quietly. 

“He has acted very foolishly,” Lord Vader replied. Aphra certainly agreed with _that_ statement - and she _had_ warned him. Maybe now they could actually kill the brat and be done with it. 

“Don’t,” Luke said. “Don’t kill him. Please.”

It must have been the ‘please’ that did it. Lord Vader said nothing for a moment, although his vocoder did make a crackling noise that might have been the machine’s attempt at translating a sigh. Then he nudged Bridger’s prone body with his boot, eliciting a groan. 

The Inquisitor opened his eyes, looked around blearily, and finally managed to drag himself upright enough to get into some strange position of respect - down on one knee with his right hand fisted over his heart. “Master… I…”

“I am not interested in your excuses,” Vader said. “Do not think I am sparing your life because of _mercy_. I expect you to continue to be useful to me.”

Bridger nodded, keeping his eyes down. 

“You may rise.”

Ezra did so, coughing a little and putting one hand to his throat. Aphra couldn’t help feeling just a bit sympathetic - she remembered how much that choke hurt. Vader turned to leave, putting one hand firmly on Skywalker’s shoulder to chivy him along, but the Inquisitor hesitated.

“Master…” he said - further proof in any had been needed that he wasn’t the brightest bulb on the dashboard. “There’s something you should see in that room.”

However, Lord Vader must have decided that Bridger had enough of a survival instinct remaining not to trouble him with something of complete unimportance. Silently, he let go of Luke’s shoulder and swept into the small chamber. Aphra couldn’t see exactly what he was doing in there, but when he reappeared he was holding something in his hand - a little cube which seemed to be made out of some sort of dark crystal, surrounded by metal filigree. A Jedi artefact? It quickly disappeared into one of Vader’s belt pouches.

“ _Now,_ ” Vader said in a tone that did not allow for any argument, “we are _leaving_.”

\----

Ezra regained consciousness slowly and uncomfortably. His head was pounding, his throat hurt, and so did the rest of him for that matter. It took a moment to remember where he was and what had been happening, but the moment he did he felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. Lord Vader. Vader was _here_. The traces of him still felt adhered to the inside of Ezra’s skull where he had forced his way inside looking for answers. Even thinking felt raw and painful. The memories had been pulled out to the front of his mind, flicked through like a deck of Sabacc cards. Had he seen it all… including all the visions of the temple? It was difficult to be sure. 

Ezra reached out to the Force, not quite feeling up to either moving or opening his eyes. Darth Vader’s vast Force-presence was still nearby, a dark supernova of cold flame that surrounded the spitting, fierce light that was Luke.

Luke! _Karabas._ There were only two ways this could go, and Ezra knew which one he was expecting. He’d grown fond of the padawan, although he really shouldn’t have. It was a pity he would be dead soon. Except… except that didn’t seem to be happening. Instead they were… talking?

Ezra focused, forcing his tired mind to pay attention to the actual _words_ just in time to hear… what?

“ _I_ am your father,” Lord Vader said, and the Force rang with the truth of it. 

_How?_ Luke had _told_ him who his father was and that was Anakin Skywalker - and that had been just as much the truth in the Force. The same Anakin Skywalker, Ezra thought with dawning horror, who had gone missing at the end of the Clone Wars. Kanan had told him that, told him that it was assumed he’d died defending the Temple. But… the last vision that he and Luke had seen had implied that Skywalker had died on Mustafar. Mustafar, a planet so steeped in the Dark Side… Not to mention that Darth Vader had first appeared not long after the Empire’s founding, and _no-one_ knew from where. Could that mean… could the two really be one and the same?

Of course Jedi could become Sith, that wasn’t in doubt, but… it seemed so unlikely that a Clone Wars General, a Republic hero, could be a Sith Lord. Yet hadn’t he wondered how a Jedi, with all their poisonous philosophy, could have had a child in the first place? Wouldn’t it make _sense_ that such a Jedi hadn’t been a _real_ Jedi at all? 

And if that was the case, then for how long? How long had Darth Vader been keeping up the pretense of the loyal Jedi? Had he been their spy inside the Order, the one who informed Lord Sidious of the plot against him? How horrible that must have been, to mouth their platitudes and wait for the day that the Sith could achieve ascendancy once again! And Luke… Luke who _should_ have been raised into the Inquisitorius… the Jedi must have learned about his existence. That explained the vision of Mustafar at least a little. Kenobi had learned the truth, had gone to Mustafar to find Luke’s mother, lied to her about Skywalker’s death, and spirited them away! 

Ezra’s head ached even more, his thoughts whirling as he put it all together. Wouldn’t that have been just like a Jedi - they were well acquainted with stealing children! But now it would be alright, everything would be fixed. Luke would be taught the ways of the Dark Side, he would become a Lord of the Sith like his father and… to go by what Lord Vader was now saying - although Ezra’s perception of the world still seemed to dissolve into white noise half the time - they would follow the old tradition and overthrow the Emperor. 

There could be many Inquisitors, many potentials, many lesser Sith, but there could only be two Lords. The Master and the Apprentice. And having felt the strength of Luke in the Force, Ezra had no doubt that together, the Skywalkers would be able to do it. 

Luke was no Tarkin, no Kallus. He would be good for this galaxy, Ezra knew it. It was… just a pity he wouldn’t be around to see it. He had only been following his instincts and the Force, but he had still led Lord Vader’s _son_ into danger. Darth Vader was not a forgiving man - there was no room for mercy on the thousand battlefields of the Empire. He had killed officers for a lot less. 

They were talking about him, he realised. Luke was… he was asking his father to spare Ezra’s life. He hadn’t thought Luke liked him that much. He was an Imperial, and the Jedi had brainwashed Luke to hate the Empire. Why _wouldn’t_ he want an Inquisitor dead? Still, there was no way Lord Vader would _grant_ that request. Except…

A heavy durasteel boot nudged him in the ribs. Ezra winced involuntarily, and then opened his eyes. The game was up; Lord Vader knew he was awake now and probably had before. He still hurt all over, but he managed to drag himself up onto his knees and into a position of appropriate respect. He wasn’t going to assume that he was safe quite yet, and if he was going to die he could at least do so with some dignity. 

“Master…” he said, the words scraping his throat raw. “I…”

“I am not interested in your excuses,” Lord Vader said. The emanations of his cold, controlled anger were grinding against the tattered remnants of Ezra’s mental shields, even though they weren’t being directed at him personally. “Do not think I am sparing your life because of _mercy._ I expect you to continue to be useful to me.”

Ezra nodded, keeping his eyes down. 

“You may rise.”

Maybe he really would survive today. Wouldn’t that be something. 

A random drift of thought - or perhaps a tendril of the Force working its way into his unprotected mind - made him remember what he had been so focused on before Lord Vader arrived. It… wouldn’t be wise to bring it up surely, not when Vader was so angry at him but… it was _important._ If that was a Sith artefact in there… Lord Vader seemed to be willing to at least humour him that far, and swept past him into the little room. After scant moments he reappeared with a holocron - one made of dark crystal and steeped in the particular feel of the Dark Side.

He had been right! A small victory at least, in this otherwise terrible day. 

“ _Now_ ,” Lord Vader said, “we are _leaving._ ”

There were no more visions to trouble their trek back through the temple corridors. The Light Side hung back, a watchful presence, but it made no move towards them. It had fulfilled its task, and presumably the Jedi of old had given it no instructions about those who were on their way out. Good. Ezra didn’t think he could take anything else happening today!

So of course, because the universe took that sort of statement as a challenge, when they finally came out into the wan light of this world’s sun there were two strangers standing next to Aphra’s freighter who _definitely_ shouldn’t have been there. 

“Leia! Han!” Luke shouted in alarm. 

“Princess,” Lord Vader said with a satisfied growl. “What a _pleasure_ to see you here.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Han and Leia run into a large Darth Vader shaped problem, Leia issues a challenge, and Vader is forced to feel the frustration of not being able to murder his son's BFFs. Also, Han meets a few new friends.

**0 ABY - Temple courtyard, Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim**

This really _was_ a pretty ship, Han thought, as they headed back down the entry ramp. And a tough nut to crack - after taking so long hacking past the encryption just to get on board he hadn’t relished trying to get into her computer systems as well. In the end it had been easier just to go with physical sabotage. It was a pity they’d had to do such terrible things to her engines, her hyperdrive, and her nav console. Particularly given how souped-up she was under the hood - it was actually a little scary. He knew less about yachts than he did about freighters, cruisers, and the other kind of vessels that smugglers usually used, but he knew enough to peg this one as a Nubian J-type, pre Clone Wars, which meant it must have been a _nightmare_ getting all those brand new off-market mods to sync up with her systems. Whoever had modded this baby really knew their stuff. Concealed weapons, upgraded sub-lights, layered shields, one _beast_ of a hyperdrive...

And _Vader,_ of all people, was flying around in this! 

Han had been an Imp for just long enough to have picked up on at least some of the gossip about Darth Vader, including the story that said he did all his own maintenance on his TIE and just what had happened to the unlucky pit crew who _hadn’t_ been clued in to that fact. He hadn’t believed it before, but now… it made a man wonder. Still, why choose a _Nubian yacht_ as a pet project, unless it was for the sheer fact that _no-one_ would be expecting it? It made no kriffing sense! 

But there wasn’t any time to worry about it any longer, not when Luke was still out there somewhere. Vader was nowhere to be found, and the only place he _could_ be was that giant building in front of them - the one that Luke was bound to be in too. Sith-spit! Han would even pray to that hokey Force religion if it helped Luke stay alive. 

“We need to do the same to this other ship too,” the Princess told him, nodding towards the heavy freighter which was parked not far away. It wasn’t a vessel Han recognised, but he didn’t quite like the look of it. He felt that he _ought_ to know it, and that somehow its presence spelled bad news. But he couldn’t think of any reason to give Leia aside from his gut instinct, which he was well aware wouldn’t be good enough for her. 

And then his bad feeling got a _lot_ worse. 

“Leia! Han!” a familiar voice shouted. Han turned to see Luke standing on the steps of the temple with _Darth kriffing Vader’s_ hand clasped tightly on his shoulder. Artoo was next to him, beeping frantically. There were another couple of beings with them as well; a woman dressed in fine smuggler fashion - had to be the owner of the second ship - and a young man in black with Imperial cogs on his shoulders. So that was the Inquisitor the Imps had been talking about. But they paled into insignificance next to the considerably _bigger_ problem that was Vader. Kriff it! Just who they had been hoping _not_ to run into. 

At least Luke was still alive. He looked drained, his eyes ringed in red, but he was _alive_ and that was all that was important. 

Vader let go of Luke and stalked forwards, unhooking his lightsaber from his belt. “Princess,” he growled. “What a _pleasure_ to see you here.” Han bristled. That was a threat if ever he’d heard one, and no-one got to threaten Leia Organa when he was around! He had his blaster out and up in one swift movement, and was aware out of the corner of his eye of Leia doing the same. He hadn’t intended to start shooting just yet, but Leia wasn’t one to wait, and so of course he had to join in. 

Vader’s red blade deflected the shots, and then his other hand came up and Han felt his blaster jerk right out of his hands, skidding across the courtyard well out of reach. Leia’s landed right beside it. He swore. The _smart_ thing to do would be to make a run for it back to the _Falcon,_ but they hadn’t had a chance to disable the freighter yet. Vader would still have the chance to get away, and there was no _way_ the Princess would retreat with that in mind. Behind Vader, Luke jerked forwards trying to make a run for it, but the smuggler grabbed him before he could get far, whispering something in his ear that seemed to drain some of the fight out of him - and that was just _wrong_. 

There was a snap-hiss from beside him. Han nearly leapt out of his skin. Leia was holding a green lightsaber with a determined expression. 

“You kept that?” he asked. 

“I thought it might come in useful,” Leia replied. 

“You have no right to that weapon,” Vader said, menacing. “Nor have you been trained in its use. Do not meddle in what you do not understand.”

“I understand enough,” Leia said. 

I have had enough of foolish children for one day,” Vader said, stalking towards them, his little _entourage_ following on a safe distance behind. “Get out of my way.”

“And let you escape? No. Never.”

“Do you care nothing for your young pilot’s safety?” 

“Luke can look after himself,” Leia replied, with icy calm. “He knows what’s at stake here. The Rebel Alliance would have to pay a very high price in lives indeed for it to no longer be worth seeing you dead.”

“Such hate,” Vader said. Han wasn’t sure if it was meant to be mocking, or if Vader actually _admired_ that. He wasn’t sure which was worse. “But the weapon of Alderaan’s vengeance would better be pointed at one other than me.”

“You were there. You watched.”

Han thought he should try and take advantage of the distraction of Leia and Vader’s showdown. There was still a ship to disable here, after all, and if he could just get up the ramp he could lock it from the inside. That would give him enough time… 

“As did you,” Vader said, still making no move. He didn’t know that everyone here was on a deadline then. Otherwise he wouldn’t be willing to try and… and do what, exactly? Win a war of words? 

“I was _forced_ to watch!” Leia shouted. “ _You_ forced me to watch! Don’t pretend to me that you _cared_ about Alderaan’s fate. You’re a monster - you stood by and let it happen.”

“It was a waste,” Vader replied. “and it was unwise. Alderaan’s death has only given strength to the Rebellion.”

Han was nearly at the ramp. The smuggler and the Inquisitor were too far away to stop him… but they weren’t trying. Han looked at them across the courtyard. The smuggler was actually smiling. What did she know that he didn’t? Did she have some sort of trap set up in her ship? Hell, there was no way this was going to be as easy as he’d hoped. But what other options did he have? 

He continued slowly backing up. Metal walls closed around him. It was dark in here. The vessel had been left idling on low power, with only the red-lights in the floor illuminating the room he was in. There were boxes stacked everywhere, blank crates that could have contained anything. It felt like all the hairs down his neck and spine were trying to leave his body. This did not feel like a good place to be. 

In front of him, two new lights flicked on. The small round lights of a protocol droid’s eyes. Han relaxed a little. Sure, protocol droids could be annoying, but one of them wouldn’t be enough to stop him from sabotaging this ship. 

“Now where’s the kriffing hyperdrive control on this ship?” he asked himself under his breath. 

“Oh, BT-1, we have a guest!” the droid said. It had the same irritating voice as Threepio. Maybe it was here to bother him to death? In the darkness, something whirred and clicked. What was that? Another droid?

“Oh no need for that Beetee,” the protocol droid said. “There’s only one of him, and it has been so long since Mistress Aphra gave us any toys to play with. You can have him after I’m done.” 

Han felt his stomach drop through his boots. Aphra - he knew that kriffing name. Smuggler and activator of archeotech for the Droid Gotra, weird fascination with weapons and particularly droids that were _also_ weapons. Which meant that _wasn’t_ a protocol droid.

“My name is Triple-Zero,” the droid said as it advanced on him. “And I shall be your torturer for today.”

He ran.

\----

He simply did not have time for this foolishness. Vader had no particular ill will for Princess Leia Organa - no more at least than he had for every member of the Rebellion - but her hatred for him was becoming troublesome. His first thought upon seeing her had been pleasure that at last he would get to _kill_ something on this blasted planet, but good sense had quickly prevailed. If Luke had not been present, he would have been free to get rid of her and her companion, but unfortunately his son knew these people. He had been working with them on Cymoon I, and if his son grew squeamish at the thought of killing an Inquisitor he had known for less than a day then he certainly would not stand idly by at the death of his friends. 

Vader knew all too well how stubborn a Skywalker could be - although that had been another life. Another person. He was wiser now, but his son clearly was not. No matter. Luke had destroyed the Death Star - he was _capable_ of ending lives. They would merely have to work on his ability to do so whilst looking said lifeforms in the face. 

He needed to get his son off this planet before the _Starfall_ thought to ask any more questions, such as what had happened to its Inquisitor - although if they had allowed a rebel ship to slip past them then perhaps they were not as observant as a ship of the Imperial Navy ought to be. He needed space, and time. He needed to have a proper conversation with Luke. It was clear that Kenobi had done a great deal of damage with his lies. His son had not taken the truth well. 

Had he really had any reason to expect otherwise? For all of his life thus far, Luke had believed his father to be dead at Vader’s hand. Kenobi had built him up as a target in the boy’s mind, nurtured his hatred so that he would have the strength to kill him when the time came. How hypocritical of his old master! It seemed that in extremis, even Kenobi had found a use for hatred, despite the Jedi Code. Once again, Vader felt a small stab of satisfaction at killing him. The old man had not put up much of a fight, and his claim to greater power in death seemed to have come to nothing. 

Once confronted with the reality of the situation, Luke had come to accept it, at least in part. He was still being stubborn on the subject of the Dark Side, but that would pass when he understood what it really meant. Then he would come to realise that there was only one path to follow into the future they both wanted. 

But none of that was going to happen unless this _child_ got out of his way! 

He had reached an impasse with Organa. He had hoped to goad her into an attack, get her close enough to safely disarm and subdue her, but her anger was cold and controlled. Admirable, but inconvenient. She was too clever to be caught out in that way. She might not know how to use that stolen lightsaber, but an untrained wielder was as much a danger to herself as to others. If he made the first move there was no guarantee of her safety. 

As he gathered the Force to him in preparation for ripping the saber from her hands - an awkward prospect when she had so tight a grip on it - a scream tore through the tense silence. The smuggler - Solo - slid down the open ramp of the _Ark Angel_ , spasms rippling through his body and smoke rising from a patch of his jacket where the synth-leather had been burned through. Triple-Zero ambled down after him, his palms raised to display the shock pads built into them. 

“No!” Luke cried. “Han!”

Vader spared a flicker of attention to reach out for Solo’s presence in the Force - still alive. Merely stunned. Good, that left only the Princess… His son darted past him before he or any of the others could stop him. Damn the boy! Triple-Zero had no orders regarding him - he would not be safe from the droid! 

“Shit,” Aphra murmured behind him. 

“Go!” Vader ordered. She did as she was told, Artoo following her. Good; it would be the safest place for the astromech. Princess Organa took a step backwards, clearly thinking of heading towards Solo as well, even though her eyes remained fixed on him. She had looked away at Solo’s cry, and he had felt the flicker of her worry in the Force, but she did not allow her attachments to over-rule her head. Had she been Force-sensitive, she would have made a good Jedi - or a better Sith, given the strength of her anger. With a single wrench Vader ripped up the massive flagstones for several meters all around her, tipping them on their ends and trapping her inside a wall of stone. It would not take her long to work out how to use the saber to cut her way out, but it would give him _time._

“Triple-Zero!” he heard Aphra shout. “Stand down! Override voiceprint ‘Aphra’: add new master designation Luke Skywalker!”

“Confirmed Mistress Aphra,” Triple-Zero replied. Vader relaxed slightly. He circled the flagstones, heading for the _Ark Angel_. “I do still have permission to drain this other meatbag of his blood though, don’t I?” 

[Don’t you karking dare, slagging piece of scrap!] Artoo beeped furiously. The little droid - _his_ little droid - was guarding Solo’s body furiously, shock probe extended and crackling. It appeared Kenobi had passed on more than his old lightsaber to the boy.

“Denied,” Vader growled to the assassin droid, stopping next to his son and grasping the boy’s shoulder once again. It seemed he would need to keep a literal hold on Luke to prevent him running off. “Board the ship. Aphra, take the Inquisitor with you. Luke and I will meet you at a location I shall transmit to you once we are away.”

“What about Han?” Luke said, trying and failing to shake out of his grip. “He needs medical attention!” 

“Sadly, he will survive without it,” Triple-Zero replied. “Master Vader, I suspect he was boarding the _Ark Angel_ to carry out some form of sabotage. I did not activate until his intrusion - I cannot comment on if he has done the same to your own vessel.”

“Lord Vader!” It was the Twelfth Brother. He held up his comm-link. “The _Starfall_ \- it’s under attack! An entire Rebel battle-group! They’re holding as best they can, but they won’t be able to last long against that kind of firepower!”

As it always seemed to on such occasions, time slowed down. Their tactical situation spread out before him like an array of disparate parts as his mind picked through them, turning them this way and that, analysing, working out how to fit them together into the best configuration, the way to _win._ He made his decision. 

“Aphra, board the _Ark Angel_ with the Inquisitor. Circle around to the other side of the planet and head into orbit from there. Take the Artoo unit with you.” As much as he would have like to bring Artoo with him and find out where the droid had been all these years, Artoo simply would not be able to keep up over this terrain even with his rockets. He reached out with the Force and levitated the unconscious body of Solo into the air, draping him over his shoulder so he would be easier to carry. “We will make our own escape on Solo’s ship.”

And if Solo had so much as _touched_ his ( _Padmé’s_ ) yacht then even Luke’s attachment to him would not save him. 

_I will come back for her Padmé. I promise you._

A segment of stone crashed to the ground. Organa had succeeded in her escape. 

“If you wish to preserve the life of your friends Luke, you will follow me,” he said. He had scouted the area from the air before landing - that much was habit when entering unfamiliar territory. There was only one clearing nearby large enough for a YT-1300. 

He would deal with the Princess at a later date. 

\----

Luke’s head was spinning. Everything seemed to be happening so fast, and his mind was so packed full of thoughts that he could barely even focus on any one in particular. His father was alive, his father was Vader, everything he had been told of his past was a lie - all of it except what the temple had showed him… And now here he was, running at his father’s side, one of his friends being held as a hostage, the other left behind - but safe. Alive. Because of him. Because Vader seemed to care enough about what he thought to show a mercy that was utterly alien to his reputation. 

It hurt, having to leave Leia behind, but she would be okay. And better there than with them. He didn’t know what his father had planned for Han, but he was dreading the possibilities. 

When he had seen the two of them outside the temple, Luke had barely been able to control his fear. He’d thought that he would have to watch his friends being killed in front of him. When it hadn’t happened, when Vader had held back, he’d been able to relax enough to wonder what on earth they were doing here. He had told them he’d be coming to Vrogas Vas, of course, but what could have made them come to get him? Unless it wasn’t him they were here for… 

There hadn’t been any sign of the _Falcon_ around either, but there had been a new ship sitting in the courtyard - a _Nubian_ ship. Not the same as the one he had seen in his vision, which had been a little smaller in the body with wide-swept wings like a sand-ray. This was an earlier model in the same J-type line, a sleek silver dart large enough for a retinue - not just a personal yacht. It didn’t look _anything_ like a Rebel ship. It was far too flashy. So that really only left one person it could belong to. His father. And Aphra’s droid Triple-Zero had confirmed that too. 

Luke was going to have a number of questions about that ship, once he got half a chance. 

Then things had started to go wrong. Leia had kept one of the lightsabers they’d stolen from Grakkus and she had challenged Vader with it. Han had tried to get inside Aphra’s ship, and run into Triple-Zero, who was some kind of horrible Imperial torture droid. And now Han was unconscious and their captive, and there was apparently a whole Alliance battle-group in orbit waiting for his father. 

Which was why they were now running for the _Falcon._ It wasn’t easy keeping up with Vader. Luke wouldn’t have thought he could move so quickly, as big as he was, and as heavy as the armour must make him. When he had encountered him before, his father had never _rushed_ anywhere - he hadn’t been _slow,_ but neither had he made any movement more than the minimum necessary to achieve his aims. Now though the Dark Side was burning all around him, flowing through him, and Luke felt sure he wasn’t pushing himself half as hard as he could have if Luke wasn’t there. 

The forest flashed past. They were leaping over uneven ground, fallen trees and branches, whipping past undergrowth that threatened to tangle. Luke half-slid down a muddy bank that Vader had simply jumped, leaving a crater in the ground where he’d landed, and felt an invisible hand in the Force reach out to steady him. Vader didn’t say anything about it, just kept going, Han still held tight and unmoving over his shoulder as easily as though his body was stuffed with feathers. Luke panted for breath. At least the weariness threatening to flood him had quieted his mind. All he could think about was his sore muscles, the need to keep himself upright, to _move._ And yet, the further they went, the easier it seemed to become. As though something outside him was giving him strength. 

He jumped over a dip in the ground that could easily have twisted his ankle without even noticing that it was there. He could almost _feel_ the world around them, as though his awareness of himself had jumped the bounds of his body and was stretching out… to the trees, to the plants, to sparks of life that _glowed_ in a sense that wasn’t quite sight but was almost...

He was reaching out to the Force, Luke realised. He hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t meant to, but in the effort and the need to keep up with Vader he had done it instinctively. But in realising what he was doing, he felt the awareness and the strength draining away as though examining it too closely had disrupted the delicate connection. 

_Stop it,_ he told himself. _Don’t think about it then!_

But he didn’t need to hold it much longer. They burst into a clearing the next moment and Luke saw the familiar and welcome sight of the _Millennium Falcon_ in front of them. Vader gestured, and the landing ramp hissed downwards. Luke followed his father up and into the ship, smiling at the familiar corridor sweeping round to the cabin, the clank of his boots on the metal plating underfoot with that hollow ring from the holds concealed beneath. Vader did not waste any time. The Force seemed to be telling him where to go. He dropped Han on the bunk in the main cabin and swept back through the corridor, down the side passage into the cockpit, booting up the engines and the nav systems. Luke hung back in the cabin, throwing glances towards Han, who still showed no signs of moving. 

Had the droid hit him with something like a stun-bolt? Those could take a few hours to wear off. But what if it was something different? What if it had done some real damage? 

He wasn’t doing any good here. He followed the path Vader had taken and joined him in the cockpit. 

“Your fretting is needless,” his father said from the pilot’s chair, as though reading his mind. “He will wake shortly.”

“And then?” Luke asked.

“That is up to you,” Vader replied. 

“I already gave my word I was going to come with you, didn’t I?” Luke said. He would really rather not have Han held as a hostage to his good behaviour. 

Vader’s silence spoke more powerfully than words as to what he thought of that promise. Admittedly, in his place Luke wouldn’t exactly trust himself either. Luke sighed, and went to strap himself into the co-pilot’s seat, at least until they had left the planet’s gravity well and could let the _Falcon’s_ own internal grav generators take over. He wanted to be able to see what was going on in the meantime.

And it wasn’t _unpleasant_ exactly to have his father’s presence next to him. It should have been; Vader was a burning sun of cold, dark fire. The Dark Side had always made him faintly uneasy before - it was clinging, clammy, intrusive and icy - but here and now it seemed to be keeping its distance. It was all around him, but not _touching_ him. 

The _Falcon_ lifted off smoothly, arcing upwards towards the deep blue sky and space beyond. 

\----

**0 ABY - Temple courtyard, Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim**

Leia deactivated the lightsaber and shoved it back in her jacket pocket, trying to control her anger. They had been _so close._ She hadn’t been expecting that trick of Vader’s, and she hadn’t been expecting him to have allies other than the Inquisitor on the planet’s surface. Now he had _two_ hostages, and he would reach the _Falcon_ before long. Even if the fleet hailed them on their way out of the system, she had no doubt that with Han’s life at stake Vader would be able to persuade Luke to give them the all clear. 

They had lost him. They had lost their chance. And Luke and Han… Vader had them. 

Kriff it! Leia knew very well what happened to rebels when Vader was involved. Just thinking about it… the sharp tang of antiseptic hit her nostrils, she heard the heavy rasp of Vader’s breathing bouncing of the walls of the small cell, felt the prick of the needle in her arm… She shook her head, trying to force the memory out of her mind. It was easy to let it take over her - it always felt so real. She came back to herself with a cold sweat sticking her clothes to her. 

What would Vader do with his great _prize_? Imp rumours said that he had been out of favour with Palpatine since the destruction of the Death Star, so no doubt he would be hoping to capitalise on capturing the pilot who had been the cause of that. Drag him back to Imperial Center for a grand, public execution. Prove to the Empire that appropriate revenge had been meted out. Even if she hadn’t been burning with the desire to rescue Luke and Han - although she really shouldn’t care about that scruffy nerf-herder as much as she did - it was only good tactical sense to do so. The Rebel Alliance couldn’t afford to give the Empire this kind of propaganda victory. 

Her own personal comms wouldn’t be strong enough to reach the fleet in orbit. That ‘Aphra’ person’s ship had already been gone by the time she cut her way out of that prison of Vader’s. Which only left the yacht they had already finished sabotaging - _including_ its comm system. 

Swearing under her breath, Leia headed towards the ship to start undoing some of the damage she and Han had done.

\----

**0 ABY - YT-1300 _Millenium Falcon,_ in hyperspace**

He hurt _everywhere._ Han opened his eyes, blinking blearily, trying to force the blurry world around him into focus. He was… lying down. On the bunk in the _Falcon’s_ cabin, in fact. He would recognise that lumpy mattress anywhere. What had happened? The last thing he remembered was droid eyes in the dark, and a sharp stab of pain that had rippled through his body turning all his muscles into tight arcs of agony. Then… nothing. 

Han tried to get up and ended up rolling out of the bunk, landing on the floor with a heavy thud. Someone swore in Huttese, and a hand landed on his shoulder, another helping him up. He found himself being sat down on the edge of the bed. His head was spinning and he felt weak as a pooka-kitten. 

“Are you okay?” the same person asked. Han managed to look up without losing his balance. 

“Luke?” he said. “Shouldn’t I be asking _you_ that question?”

The kid smiled. He still looked terrible, but right now Han wasn’t one to talk. He probably didn’t look much better.

“What in the Sith hells _happened_?” Han asked. “How did we escape from Vader?”

“About that…” Luke said, sounding awkward. “He’s actually the one flying the _Falcon_ right now.”

“ _What?_ ” Han yelled, and immediately regretted it. He hadn’t though it was possible for his head to hurt any more than it had, but it looked like he was exploring new vistas of pain today. He continued at a much lower volume. “How could you let a monster like that touch my baby?”

Luke sighed. “There’s so much that I need to explain,” he said. Poor kid sounded like the whole world was weighing on his shoulders. Not that anyone would be in the best of moods after being captured by Vader. 

“How about you start with what went down after I got knocked out?”

“Yeah… that was Triple-Zero. Apparently he’s one of Aphra’s droids.”

“A menace is what he is. I never liked assassin droids. Go around pretending to be bounty hunters - what do they even spend the credits on, I ask you?” That got a little smile out of Luke. Not as much of one as he’d have liked, mind. 

“He got you with some kind of electrical shock charge,” Luke explained. “Stunned you pretty good. I ran over to see if you were okay, and Aphra called Triple-Zee off. Vader trapped Leia by using the Force to lift up all the flagstones - I’ve never seen anything like it! Then Ezra told us the _Starfall_ was being attacked by the Alliance…”

“Wait,” Han interrupted him. “Who’s Ezra?”

“Oh, the Inquisitor,” Luke explained. 

“The _Inquisitor?_ One of those weird ISB special agents? You’re on first name basis with an Inquisitor now are you?”

“He’s not so bad.” Luke shrugged. “He means well. But he’s been brainwashed, for _years,_ to think the only way to do the right thing is to play along with the Empire.”

“Yeah, and how do you know that? He tell you the whole sob story did he?” What was going on here? Luke had a big heart, that was obvious about the kid, but going around feeling sorry for an _Imp?_

“I saw it Han! The Temple… it showed us these visions…”

“Now I know you’ve gotta be kidding me.” Han rolled his eyes - or did as much as his pounding head would let him. “More of this hokey religious stuff?”

Luke sighed. “Never mind. I guess it doesn’t matter right now. Anyway, he told us about the Alliance’s attack - which I guess explains why you and Leia were there - and Vader decided we would take you and the _Falcon_ to get past the blockade.”

“There’s a bit too much ‘ _we_ ’ going around for my liking,” Han said under his breath. Luke didn’t reply. In fact, he wouldn’t meet Han’s eyes. Well, he really didn’t want to put too much thought into analysing that right now. “So they’re all here? Aphra and that Inquisitor too?”

“No, they took Aphra’s ship and made a run for it from the other hemisphere,” Luke replied. “I guess they thought a smuggler’s freighter would get less attention - and it seems to have worked.”

“So we’re in hyperspace. Great. Any idea of the destination?”

Luke shook his head. “I didn’t get a look at the navigation computers. Sorry Han. I have no idea where he’s taking us.”

It _had_ been a bit much to hope for. “What now kid?” he asked. “I sure hope you’ve got some bright idea to get us out of this, because right now my head feels like a Hutt is sitting on it.”

Luke laughed, but it was short and kind of miserable. “Yeah, that’s… I sort of promised I’d go with Vader.”

“ _What?_ ” Han tried to stand up automatically, and regretted it. “Why would you do a damn fool thing like that? You’ve gotta stop surprising me like that kid. Every time I move too quick the whole room starts spinning.” 

“I knew we should be getting you some real medical attention,” Luke said, sounding worried. 

“Nah, it’s okay.” He hadn’t meant to cause the kid any concern. Sure, he didn’t exactly feel great, but it was nothing a bit of rest wouldn’t cure. “Skull thick as the _Falcon’s_ hull, that’s me.”

Luke sighed. “I just… don’t know what he’s going to do to you,” he said quietly. 

“Don’t worry so much about me,” Han told him. “Spare some thought for your own hide, alright. Hell, when we turned up and saw Vader’d already gone inside the temple, I thought for sure we were going to find you dead!”

“He’s not going to hurt me,” Luke replied, sounding strangely confident about that fact. “Not now…”

“Not now what?” Han asked suspiciously. Luke was avoiding his gaze again. Just what had happened inside that temple? Luke simply wasn’t acting like himself. That Sith bastard had killed his father, after all. By now he should have been doing something foolhardy like challenging Vader to a duel. Not that Han wanted to encourage that sort of thing, but the fact that he wasn’t having to sit on an angry Skywalker to stop him charging off was just unnatural. 

“You’re not going to like this Han,” Luke said, dragging a hand through his hair. “I’m still not sure how to feel about it myself.”

“See, now you’ve got to tell me.”

“Just… try not to over-react, okay?”

“This is sounding worse and worse.”

“Vader didn’t kill my father.”

Han frowned. “Hey, that sounds like _good_ news. So the old man’s still out there somewhere?”

Luke fidgeted. “Um. Try, the next room over.”

“Luke…”

“Vader’s my father,” Luke said very quickly. 

Han laughed. He couldn’t help it - it was just too ridiculous an idea. “Luke, kid, there’s just no _way_ that’s true. I don’t know what kriffing reason Vader might have for telling you that, but it’s obviously a lie.”

Luke shook his head. “Some part of me wishes it was. That would make everything so much simpler. But it’s the truth.”

Han stared at him. Damn, but the kid really believed it. “What makes you so sure about it?” he asked.

“The Force,” Luke said, with a stubborn set to his jaw that said he knew very well what Han was going to think about _that_ answer. 

“Really?” Han said, raising an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yes, really!” Luke said, scowling. “And the way he’s acted since telling me… I think he must have only found out I even existed recently, because he didn’t know who I was back on Cymoon I.”

“Oh, you mean the time he tried to _kill you_ ,” Han pointed out. “I think all this Jedi stuff has knocked a screw loose up in there, because this makes as much sense as a dancing gundark.”

“Han, just… stop,” Luke said. “Just. Trust me. Believe that I know what I’m talking about, even if it doesn’t make sense to you.”

“Luke… I’m sorry.” Now Han felt like a real jerk. The kid had enough on his shoulders, and Han wasn’t about to change his mind about something he felt so strongly was true, not like this. “All I’m saying is that this is the kind of situation where you should demand a DNA test before you get too caught up in the whole mess.”

Luke seemed to decided it would be better to change the subject. “How did you and Leia even know that Vader was coming to Vrogas Vas anyway?” he asked. 

“That is something I would _also_ like to know,” a too-familiar, deep voice said from the entrance to the cabin. Han glared. Vader. It was just _wrong_ seeing him in the _Falcon._

“Have you been listening to that whole conversation?” Luke asked angrily. 

“You have never been taught to shield your mind,” Vader said. Luke flushed. Was Vader really trying to suggest that he was able to read minds? Yeah, right. 

“Well?” Vader said menacingly to Han, when no answer was forthcoming. Sithspit! Although… given the particular nature of their source it probably wouldn’t hurt the Alliance in any way for him to tell the truth. And Han liked his throat in an open, non-suffocating condition. 

“Some slimeball of an Imperial by the name of Karbin,” he said. “Not a great friend of yours, I take it.”

Vader didn’t appear to react in any way that Han could see, but in some ways that was actually more frightening. He wouldn’t want to be in that Imp’s shoes when Vader came calling. 

“We shall leave hyperspace in four hours,” Vader said eventually. “Luke.” He strode past them, clearly expecting Luke to follow him. Luke shot Han an apologetic look, and followed the man he believed to be his father. If they were going off to have a little private talk, then Han hoped that the kid would at least have the sense to ask some slightly more discerning questions. 

Sighing, he made himself comfortable on the bunk. Four hours was plenty of time to get a little more sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a reason that Vader can't tell that Leia is Force-sensitive despite having been around her plenty of times in her political life and even inside her head. That reason will be explored at some point a little later on, I promise. ;)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Artoo is a grumpy little droid, Luke and Vader have a proper conversation, and Vader has a plan.

**0 ABY - _Ark Angel_ , in hyperspace**

Artoo was not happy with this ship, its humans, or the other droids on board. He had been separated from his People, not that anyone had asked his Force-damned opinion about it, and now they weren’t even permitting him to do anything _useful_. He was a karking _astromech,_ for the Force’s sake. More of an astromech than the Sithspawn murder-bot rolling around pretending to be one. That glitching, slag-bound piece of scrap code wouldn’t know a navcomp if it was jacked right into its kriffing central processor. He _should_ have been with Luke-designation Skywalker 2.0 but…

But Anakin had told him no. 

Artoo hadn’t recognised His-Anakin at first, not with the new bodywork upgrades, not until the creature he had previously been designating kriffing big-droid/?not-droid had revealed its relationship to Luke. Afterwards Luke and all the other humans had seemed to accept this as accurate, so Artoo had come to believe himself that it must be true. His-Anakin hadn’t acknowledged _him_ either, but Artoo was sure there was a good damned reason for this. Perhaps His-Anakin was in trouble? It might explain why His-Anakin hadn’t retrieved him or Threepio in all the years they had been loaned to Not-Master Bail-Organa. So he had just followed on behind the two extra meatbags and waited to see what would happen.

Bad Things, seemed to be the answer to that kriffing question. It appeared that Artoo’s work with the Alliance to Restore the Republic was at an end, since neither Luke or His-Anakin were on that group’s side anymore. That didn’t seem right. Artoo had enjoyed the Alliance, and Bail-Organa hadn’t been too bad; there had always been plenty for him to do. But he trusted His-Anakin. The thought of going against him in any way felt foreign to his processor. 

That meant when Smuggler-Aphra had been told to bring him aboard, Artoo hadn’t made a fuss. He’d followed her and the Sithling onto the freighter only to discover a pair of very kriffing disagreeable droids. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the occasional urge to murder the occasional offensive organic, but unlike those two, Artoo had been programmed with a proper sense of Force-damned right and wrong. Beetee and Triple-Zero were only barely restrained from outright chaos. 

_And_ they were karking rude. 

Artoo found a convenient corner to lurk in and sulked. It was possible to take some comfort from the knowledge that it wouldn’t be forever. This ship designation- _Ark Angel_ would rejoin his People, and then he would be with His-Anakin again. Things would be better then. 

Things had _better_ be better then.

\----

**0 ABY - _Millennium Falcon,_ in hyperspace**

Han seemed to be okay, at least for the moment. That was one weight off Luke’s mind, but there was still so many questions, so much uncertainty, all mixed with a good dose of fear. Fear for himself, fear for Han… Vader hadn’t hurt either of them yet, but surely it could only be a matter of time? Vader might be his father, but that didn’t change who he was. What he was capable of. The Dark Side was fear and pain and anger, and Vader wanted him to become part of that. Seemed to think he would _need_ to become a part of that. 

If his father thought it was necessary to keep Luke alive, what might he be prepared to do to him or his friends?

Given that Han was remaining in the main cabin, the only place to go for some privacy was the cargo bay. Luke followed Vader into the empty hold with a certain amount of trepidation. He had so many questions, but where to begin? And would he even like the answers? He knew so little about his past and everything he had _thought_ he knew had turned out to be only lies. All his ideas about his father… had Vader ever been anything like the man he had built up in his head? 

“What _precisely_ did Kenobi tell you about Anakin Skywalker?” Vader asked him, taking up a position in the center of the cargo bay with his arms held behind his back like a general inspecting troops. Luke was sure it wasn’t _meant_ to intimidate him, but it certainly wasn’t helping his nervousness, or the sick feeling in his stomach. Was he prepared for the truth? 

“He didn’t tell me very much,” Luke replied. “He told me that he had fought with my father during the Clone Wars, that they were both Jedi Knights - which was more than Uncle Owen told me! _He_ said that my father was a navigator on a spice freighter.”

Luke wasn’t sure, but it seemed to him that Vader was becoming easier for him to read as time went on. Looking purposefully through the Force still got him nothing more than the roar of desert winds, but… he didn’t know how to explain it. He _did_ sense amusement - not a pleasant kind of amusement, but spiteful . “It seems my old master had grown humble in his dotage. Kenobi was a Jedi Master, and a member of the Jedi Council.”

“I don’t really understand what that means,” Luke admitted. 

“He was complicit in all of the Council’s lies,” his father told him. Around them the Dark Side seemed to grow thicker, leaching the heat from the room. Luke suppressed a shiver. “In their betrayal.”

“In what betrayal? What lies?”

“You have already heard this from the Twelfth Brother. Perhaps you will now believe it when it comes from one who was there.”

“You mean all of that about the Jedi stealing children and plotting to overthrow the government and… something about attachment?” Luke frowned. “It just… it all seems very hard to believe. I mean Ben - that is, Obi-Wan - he was a good man! He wouldn’t have been part of something like that.”

“I suspect the council had not yet told of him the depths of their treachery against the Emperor,” Vader said. “As to the rest…” The pause was punctuated only by ever-present noise of the respirator. “When Kenobi and his master came to Tatooine I was nine. Kenobi believed I should not be taught the ways of the Force because I was too old.”

Luke couldn’t conceal his surprise. First that _nine_ was considered too old for the Jedi - but hadn’t Ben promised to teach _him_ , when he wasn’t too far off twenty? - and secondly to get that confirmation that his father really _had_ been from Tatooine. He had been starting to think even that might have been a lie, along with everything his aunt and uncle had told him about his family, about his grandmother. This only gave him more questions to ask! 

But stay on track. “So what changed his mind?” he asked. 

“The death of his master, Qui-Gon Jinn,” Vader said. “A promise made to a dying man.”

“You mean he trained you because he felt he had to?” That was an uncomfortable thought. 

“In the face of his new-found stubbornness, the Jedi Council were also forced to relent, if only partly. They never felt I belonged there, but they were eager enough to take advantage of my strength in the Force.”

“So this council, whoever they were, thought you were too old as well?” Luke might have doubted it, but the Force was telling him that nothing his father had said so far had been untrue - or at least, not untrue as his father perceived it. He felt frustrated, at himself and at the Jedi, and he was starting to doubt. If Jedi had to be taken for teaching so young… that couldn’t be an easy choice for their parents. What if they refused? What if the Jedi wouldn’t accept that? What if Ezra really _had_ been telling the truth, about this at least? What if the Jedi _hadn’t_ been as good as he’d thought? “What would they have done instead of training you? Just left you on Tatooine?”

“Irrelevant,” his father said, after a pause which went on just slightly too long. “What else did Kenobi tell you?”

“You’re avoiding the question,” Luke said, suddenly suspicious. He could sense… hesitation? Pain? 

“I do not wish to discuss my childhood.” The temperature dropped another few degrees. Luke half expected to see his breath coming out as mist. It was understandable though, wasn’t it? Aunt Beru had told him stories when he was young about Owen’s father Cliegg; how he had fallen in love with Luke’s grandmother and freed her so they could marry. She had told him about Shmi’s life before that. She and Shmi had been close, before she died. Beru had even mentioned Anakin Skywalker, despite the fact that Owen and Beru refused to talk about him most of the time (and had _they_ known the truth, was that why?). Luke had always known his father had been a slave, before he’d managed to win the money for his freedom in the Boonta Eve Classic podrace. 

Luke thought he had maybe been half-hoping that it _wasn’t_ true, that his father _hadn’t_ been a slave - not because he was _ashamed_ of it, not when so many people on Tatooine had slave ancestry - but because he was well aware how slaves were treated on Tatooine. People said that the Empire had actually improved things a little, if only because they disapproved of slavery when the slaves were human - but the Empire’s reach in the Outer Rim was limited. There were still thousands of of people all over the planet who _belonged_ to someone. 

“Your thoughts betray you,” his father said. “Owen and Beru Lars told you.”

“Some,” Luke admitted. “Mostly they told me about my grandmother. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“Kenobi was bold to leave you with them,” Vader said. “It is strange that he did not keep you himself, to be raised as a Jedi.”

“I’ve wondered that myself,” Luke replied. “But I never got a chance to ask him. What else did he even tell me - hardly anything! He told me about the Force, about the Jedi and the Sith. He gave me your old lightsaber, and he told me that _lie_.”

“He wished for you to kill me,” his father said. Another pulse of dark anger, another swirl of biting cold. 

Luke didn’t know if that was true, but it was nothing he hadn’t thought for himself. The possibility was painful, sitting in his stomach like a lead ball. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe.”

“He has failed,” Vader said, his rage dissipating slightly. Luke felt a sense of triumph replace it, although… strangely passionless. There didn’t seem to be much joy in it. “I sense you no longer have it in your heart to destroy me.”

“No. I could never kill you, father.” 

There was joy that time, a fierce burst of it that set the dark clouds in the Force gently spinning, lightening. The room warmed a little. “You have your own doubts about me, my son,” Vader said. “Know this; I will _never_ allow you to come to harm, by my hand or any others’.” That too was truth. Truth as Vader saw it, at least. 

“You don’t think trying to turn me to the Dark Side will hurt me?” Luke asked, challenging. His father took some time to think about that. Good! Maybe he would see somehow that what he was doing was _wrong_.

“You are already angry,” Vader said eventually. “Against the Empire and Sidious. You need only to learn how to use your anger, to channel it. You can draw your strength through pain that already exists. There is no need to create more.”

“Does that mean you’ll let Han go? You won’t hurt him to make me do what you want?”

His father’s vocoder crackled - an approximation of a sigh. “He will serve me better as a bargaining chip against the Princess.”

“What do you mean?” Luke asked, suddenly suspicious. 

“The Rebel Alliance has my ship.” More anger. Was his father ever _not_ angry? “Organa cares about this smuggler, and he is likely to have some knowledge of the Rebellion which could prove useful. It would be a fair trade.”

Luke relaxed very slightly. That would probably be the best outcome all round. But after Han was gone… he’d be all alone again. It seemed likely that he would never see Han, Leia, Chewie or _anyone_ ever again. Even if he did, would _they_ be safe from _him_? 

“When we drop out of hyperspace, you will instruct Solo to establish the connection,” Vader said. “If all goes well, the exchange will be made and we will be free to travel onwards to our final destination.”

“Which is where, exactly?” 

“Vjun.”

The name meant nothing to Luke, but it tickled something in the Force. He had no idea what, though. 

“I still have so many questions,” he said. “But I need some time to think first.” He wanted to ask about the Nubian ship, he wanted to ask about his mother, he wanted to ask just what had happened to make his father turn against the Jedi and join the Sith… but the answers to all those questions were likely to contain yet more revelations that would be hard to process. 

“Rejoin your friend then,” his father told him. “I will meditate.”

\----

Meditation would certainly be necessary, for talking with his son had reminded him of his past and the person he had once been. A few short months ago he would have said nothing remained of Anakin Skywalker within him. Every tie to that existence had been lost. Only the Sith remained - and that had been what he wanted. Then he had found out about Luke and that had changed _everything_. But with his son came old memories he had not cared to look at in years. Were he a better Sith - as his Master had often told him - he would have used the pain and anger of those memories to his advantage, as fuel for his power. Yet although he was stronger than he had been as a Jedi, he was still weaker than he should be. Than he _needed_ to be. 

In the emptiness after Padmé’s death, Sidious had been the only thing left and it had been irrelevant how he felt about his Master’s orders. Sidious had never lied to him, and Vader had never been one for politics. Often he did not see how the campaigns, the battles, the deaths benefited their Empire, but he trusted his Master. He _had_ trusted his Master. Until he found out about Luke and his entire world had rearranged itself around this new center. The small things that had troubled him about Sidious were now all the excuse he needed. With his son at his side, the Emperor would die, and they could remake the Empire as it had always been intended. Strength. Order. A perfect jewel he had once - in a wild moment of triumph and emotion - intended to give to Padmé. 

Now he would give it to Luke. 

Much work would have to be done to get to that point however. Sidious held power in a thousand ways, his webs strung across the galaxy like the hyperspace lanes. Vader might have had a hand in the final training of each operative of the Inquisitorius, but the Overseer of the facility on Mustafar was his Master’s, and who could tell where an Inquisitor’s loyalty might fall when the question was asked. In the way of the Sith, they would likely support whomever seemed the strongest. If the struggle were to become protracted, as he suspected it might, then there was the question of the Imperial Navy. Vader had commanded many Admirals, Captains, battle-groups and task-forces personally over the years, but he had no official position respective to them. 

Ideally a single strike to kill his Master would be best, but Luke would not be ready for some time and Sidious had a way of discovering inconvenient truths. The war of Master and Apprentice might become a civil war, and in that case, he would need to be prepared. The ground-work would need to be laid. 

Long term planning had never been his strong suit. That had always been Kenobi’s role during the Clone Wars. Vader excelled in decisions of the moment, battlefield tactics. Grand strategy was not his game. Nor could his best efforts hope to combat Sidious’ plans. Yet he had the advantage of knowledge - he was sure his Master did not expect treachery from him. Not that this was treachery - he was a Sith, and this was the rightful way of the Dark Side. But Sidious had noted his previous lack of ambition and was always quick to express his scorn over it. No, he would not suspect, not if Vader gave him no reason to. 

Rousing himself from his thoughts long enough to check a chrono showed him that it would be less than two hours until they were due to leave hyperspace at Botajef to calculate their next jump. Sufficient time for a brief meditation. Perhaps the Force might deliver him some inspiration. 

\----

**0 ABY - Alliance battlegroup over Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim**

The wreckage of the _Starfall_ was still jetting flames from time to time, as pockets of atmosphere were breached and vented to the cold unforgiving expanse of space. Leia watched a piece of charred hull tumble slowly planet-wards. The cruiser hadn’t broken orbit fully before its destruction, and the next few days and hours would see what remained of it gradually streaking through the atmosphere and impacting on the planet below. The Imps had jettisoned their pods prior to the ship’s complete destruction, and Captain Viss of the Mon Calamari light cruiser _Serene Justice_ would be remaining in the system to organise the necessary clean up operation. The rest of the battlegroup would be heading back to join the main fleet, and take what rest and repairs they could before their next assignments. 

There had been very little loss of life on the Alliance’s side. But neither had they managed to achieve their objective. Aside from the destruction of one ISB light cruiser, which didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, they hadn’t achieved anything at all. That grated, as any loss grated. Vader had escaped, and he had taken two hostages with him. 

They _needed_ to get Luke and Han back! Leia resisted the urge to pace up and down on the bridge of the _Advocate_ \- the battle-group’s Alderaanian flagship. She hadn’t been able to get much out of that Nubian yacht of Vader’s; its systems were heavily protected and although she had always been good at tinkering with mechanical devices, hacking wasn’t really part of her skillset. The most she had been able to find out was the ship’s designation and a little of its flight history. The yacht was the _Padmé Amidala,_ an old J-type 327 built a good thirty years ago or more. Leia had done some research once she had come aboard _Advocate_ ; this line of ships had been purpose built for the royal house of Naboo, presented to each new Queen on the day of her coronation and named after her as well. Some further digging had confirmed that Padmé Amidala had indeed been Queen of Naboo for a period of eight years, prior to becoming Senator for Chommell sector until her death just before the founding of the Empire.

Why did Vader have this ship? The question kept circling back into the forefront of her mind. The only connection she could see was the Emperor himself; Amidala seemed to have been a supporter of his in the Senate, although that was only natural considering their shared birth-planet. Had the ship been a gift from Palpatine? Had it been meant as mockery, to give something so elegant to that brute? Leia couldn’t imagine the Emperor doing anything that didn’t have more than one layer of meaning to it. 

It didn’t matter. The yacht hadn’t given them any clues as to what Vader planned to do next, or to where he might be going. If Vader planned on taking Luke straight to Imperial Center there were too many possible hyperspace routes he could take for the Alliance to send a ship to cover every potential stop along the way. She didn’t want to contemplate the fact that it simply might be too late, that there really was nothing that could be done, but there didn’t seem to be much choice. 

“Queen Organa,” a voice said from behind her. 

“That title isn’t mine,” she replied, turning from the viewpoint to look at Captain Rillan. It didn’t feel comfortable, the way the survivors of her people looked at her. She didn’t deserve reverence. She hadn’t done anything to earn it. 

“The throne of Alderaan might not exist anymore, but you are still our Queen,” Rillan replied. 

“What is it?” Leia was in no mood to argue about it. She felt an ache inside of her, vast and empty, and pushed it away quickly before it could sink its hungry teeth into her. 

“A long-range comm for you, your majesty. The ident claims it’s the _Millennium Falcon_.”

Could her heart sink further? Apparently so. “Is there somewhere private I can take the call?”

Rillan nodded. “There’s a briefing room off the bridge. Is there anyone you want there?”

“No. If I need someone, I’ll make sure you know.”

The background hum and chatter of the bridge disappeared the moment the door slid shut. Leia closed her eyes for a moment, steeling herself. She had faced Vader plenty of times now. She took refuge in her anger, let it chase away any hint of fear. She was stronger than what he had done to her. 

The holo lit up, flickering. It was configured to show the whole of the _Falcon’s_ cockpit, which right now meant Luke, Han… and Vader looming behind them like some kind of malevolent statue. “Greetings Princess Organa,” Vader said. 

“That’s Commander Organa to you,” Leia snapped. It she hadn’t already been feeling testy about the matter, she might not have said that. She didn’t _care_ what Vader called her. 

“As you wish,” Vader replied. “Commander.” Somehow, the way he said it grated even more. 

“What do you want?” Leia said, wanting this over with as quickly as possible. 

“I am offering a fair and equitable exchange.” In front of him, Han was rolling his eyes, although he kept his mouth shut. The idea that the Imperials had been able to put a leash on that smart talk of his was upsetting in a way she didn’t want to analyse. At least he and Luke both looked unharmed - although looks could be deceiving. 

“I’m listening,” Leia said.

“Solo is your operative. His head is full of valuable information.” Leia tensed. She remembered… remembered all too well… with the drugs clouding her mind, Vader’s will had been like the sharp point of a drill against her skull, trying to burrow in, down to the deep and shadowed places where she kept her secrets, everything she knew. She had been able to resist - just. And she had been trained to resist interrogation. Her father hadn’t _wanted_ her to become involved in the Alliance for years to come but he had been realistic, and she was thankful for it. But Han hadn’t had any of that training. “Give me what I want, and that information shall remain where it is.”

This was far too kriffing suspicious. “What do you want?” she asked. 

“My ship,” Vader said, in a voice as cold and malevolent as anything she’d heard from him. 

“Worried your _Master_ won’t be pleased you’ve lost his present?” It was a stab in the dark, but some part of it must have hit because it actually got a reaction - only a small one, one she wouldn’t have noticed had she not been looking for it, but that was more than she had ever seen anyone get out of Vader. Internally, she smiled. 

“Do you agree to the terms of this deal?” Vader asked, ignoring her question. 

“I’m considering it,” she replied. Whether it was as simple as avoiding the Emperor’s anger or whether there was some other reason that it was so important that Vader retrieve this yacht didn’t really matter. What mattered was the chance to get close to Vader again, to strike at him and make an attempt at retrieving his hostages. “I might be more willing if you’d sweeten the pot. I want Luke back as well.”

“Skywalker is not a part of these negotiations.” 

Leia hadn’t expected him to agree, but the vehemence behind Vader’s words was surprising. She knew how cold and impersonal he could be from experience, and his reputation was only more of the same. Just as it wasn’t in character to be willing to give up a Rebel for this ship, it wasn’t like him to be quite so _fierce_ about one man, even if that person was the pilot who had destroyed the Death Star. Something about all of this felt off to her in a way she couldn’t put into words. 

“Han for your ship then,” she said, letting the issue lie for now. “Where do you want this exchange to take place?” 

“The Bandomeer system,” Vader replied. “The third planet from the sun.” Leia quickly reviewed her memories of galactic geography; Bandomeer was an Imperial mining world, which meant a standing guard of warships to protect the Empire’s investment - although they would be orbiting Bandomeer itself, the second planet. It was also on the Hydian Way leading straight towards the Core, and the fastest way towards Imperial Center from here. A logical place for Vader to want to meet. 

“You realise your ship’s systems won’t allow any unauthorised pilots to fly it,” Leia said. “We would have to tractor it onto one of our carriers.”

“You may bring one capital ship of your choosing,” Vader said with a dismissive gesture. Clearly he had already counted that into his plans. Leia had no illusions; he would be trying to lure her into a trap just as much as she would him. Not that she expected to emerge from hyperspace right into the firing line of Bandomeer’s fleet; they wouldn't be able to batter their shields down quickly enough to prevent escape, and she sincerely doubted Vader could get his hands on an Interdictor on such short notice. No, nothing would happen until after the exchange had taken place. 

“Very well,” she said. “Make sure you are ready and waiting for our arrival.”

Vader terminated the connection without another word. Leia spun round, stalking back out to the bridge. 

“Captain Rillan,” she called. “We have some things we need to discuss!”

\----

**0 ABY - _Ark Angel,_ exiting hyperspace above Vjun**

Ezra had spent most of their journey mediating, trying to regain his equilibrium. His throat still ached, and the skin was starting to purple up into dark bruises just above the collar of his uniform. If he coughed, sharp stabs of pain went up his neck, but he didn’t think anything was permanently damaged. And really, he’d been lucky to get away with his life. A bit of discomfort didn’t mean much, and he had been taught how to use his pain. It helped him focus on the Dark Side, to draw it to him and wrap it around him. 

When he had first learned this on Mustafar it had been unpleasant after so much time using Jedi ways, but Ezra had quickly come to find it comforting. He felt strong, powerful, like this. He felt a little less alone. 

The _Starfall_ was gone. Utterly destroyed by the Rebel Alliance. He hadn’t been particularly close to any of the crew on board, and he and Captain Siln had only ever had a grudging respect for each other but… he was still going to miss them. 

Aphra was busy elsewhere on the ship, and her droids had retreated to power-saving mode. Even the astromech was sulking somewhere. Ezra had this room to himself. It was a small cabin with a couple of bunks, bare walls, free of the clutter that took up most of the rest of the ship. It felt unlived in. Aphra clearly didn’t often travel with passengers or even any more of a crew than the droids. The starkness reminded him a little of Mustafar, but he was managing not to care too much. 

When they came out of hyperspace, Ezra felt it in the tremor of the ship around him. He rose from where he had been sitting cross-legged on one of the beds and made his way to the cockpit, betting he’d find Aphra there. He was right; she glared at him when he came in, but didn’t say anything disparaging. Since Vader had spared his life she seemed to have accepted his presence, although she obviously didn’t like it. 

“Where are we?” Ezra asked, gazing out the viewscreen at the desolate planet ahead. It was a rocky brown-grey colour swirling with sickly-looking clouds. There were hints of oceans under there, but whether they were made up of water or something less pleasant he wouldn’t like to guess. 

“Vjun,” Aphra replied. “That’s where we’re meant to be anyway.” She frowned at the console in front of her. “I’m not picking up anything on the scanners. I don’t think Lord Vader is here yet.”

“Then I suppose we… just wait in orbit then?” 

“I wonder why here?” Aphra said, mostly to herself. “It’s not a hyperspace lane intersection, and we had to replot our jump at Botajef to get here. So there must be a reason…”

“I sense… something about that planet,” Ezra said carefully, starting to recognise what had been prickling at his senses. “The Dark Side is strong here.”

“Probably Sith training stuff then.” Aphra shrugged. 

“I suppose Lord Vader might want to lay some groundwork before taking him to Mustafar,” Ezra said. It did make sense. There were no rules against favouritism amongst the Sith, and Mustafar’s training facility didn’t exactly go easy on its new recruits. Luke was strong enough in the Force that there couldn’t be any reason to worry about him failing one of the tests, but someone should probably explain to him that he shouldn’t be so trusting. The other trainees would take advantage of that. 

They began to approach the planet, intending to take up orbit around it, when suddenly the comm chirped. They were being hailed; and apparently from the planet’s surface. 

“Who would want to set up shop on a grubby kriff-hole of a rock like this?” Aphra muttered, but answered the hail. Both she and Ezra couldn’t hide their surprise when Imperial Navy codes flashed up on the holoscreen, quickly followed by the face of an Imperial officer. He nodded to each of them in turn. 

“Welcome to Vjun,” the man said. “Lord Vader sent word that you would be arriving. I am Major Damant, commander of the garrison at Bast Castle. If you remain on your current trajectory, I shall send an escort to guide you to an appropriate landing platform.”

“Great!” Aphra said, with a false veneer of cheer. She could not hide her confusion from the Force. The Major gave them a salute and cut the connection. 

This seemed a little too easy, especially given Ezra’s recent run of bad luck. Yet wasn’t he part of something greater than himself now? He was part of Lord Vader’s plan, and the Dark Side itself would see to it that things started to turn their way. He wondered what kind of installation this ‘Bast Castle’ might be. It was rumoured that Lord Vader had some kind of Sith retreat on a distant planet somewhere, but he surely wouldn’t have brought them _there_ , to such a private, even _sacred_ , place. 

Would he?


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Luke learns some things about his mother, Leia's trap doesn't go entirely to plan, and Luke has to stop his Father from doing something he would end up regretting later.

**0 ABY - _Millennium Falcon_ , Bandomeer system, Meerian Sector, Outer Rim**

“Just what are you planning to do, father?” Luke asked. The Falcon was currently parked in orbit over Fitee, the third planet in the Bandomeer system, idling on low power. From here Bandomeer was just a bright spot in the endless night of space and the three Star Destroyers surrounding it were utterly invisible to the naked eye. Yet it would only take a signal from Vader to bring them here in a very short time indeed. 

“I do not intend to act dishonorably,” his father replied. “However we are both aware of Commander Organa's priorities.”

Luke closed his eyes, trying not to let his frustration show even though that was a futile prospect. Vader had already mentioned his lack of shields and his projection of his emotions, even though Luke didn’t fully understand what he meant by it. “ _Why_ is this ship so important to you?” he asked. “It’s nothing to do with the Emperor, is it?” His father had reacted with anger when Leia made that suggestion, but there was a lot more to this, he could feel it. 

“No,” Vader said. “It was your mother’s ship.”

“My mother?” Some indescribable, undefinable emotion stabbed through him. A part of him had suspected it had to be something like that. The yacht looked too much like the one he had seen in his vision. “I… I don’t know anything about her,” he said quietly. “What was she like?”

His father hesitated. It was something Luke was coming to recognise whenever he had broached a difficult topic. And what could be more difficult that this? He had to believe his father had loved her - she had spoken his name too fondly in the vision to think anything else. She had worried for him, for his safety. And… Obi-Wan had said nothing. What _had_ happened on Mustafar?

“She had a kind heart,” Vader said after a while. “She was stubborn, passionate, clever… and she was beautiful.” The vocoder did not allow much emotion to leach through into his voice, but through whatever tenuous connection was allowing Luke to detect his moods he could feel his father’s pain and sorrow. He could feel the echoes of love, faint and despairing. “Kenobi should not have kept her memory from you.”

Luke hadn’t asked… _why_ hadn’t he asked when he’d had the chance? He’d assumed at the time that Old Ben’s friendship had only been with his father, that he hadn’t necessarily known his mother, because surely otherwise Ben would have mentioned something… Perhaps it had been too painful for him. There had been quiet agony behind his eyes on Mustafar. 

“I don’t even know her name,” he admitted. 

His father’s anger rippled in the Force. “Padmé,” he said. “Her name was Padmé Naberrie. She took the throne-name Padmé Amidala when she was elected Queen of Naboo.”

“My mother was a queen?” Luke asked in surprise. He hadn’t expected anything like _that_. Well, he hadn’t really known _what_ to expect. He’d thought about it when he was younger, conjured up all kinds of ideas, but even his fantasies hadn’t aimed as high as that. 

“And later a senator,” Vader said. Was that pride Luke sensed? “She championed many worthy causes, and made many enemies doing so. It did not deter her. Indeed that was how we met for the second time, when I was assigned to protect her.”

“Was that the sort of thing the Jedi did in the Republic?” Luke asked. He wasn’t expecting an unbiased answer by any means, but so far his father hadn’t lied to him, not outright. He was sure he would have sensed an outright lie, although he had to admit that he was less sure he would be able to detect manipulation of the truth. But Vader seemed to want to be honest with him. 

“Infrequently,” Vader replied. Luke waited. Nothing else appeared to be forthcoming. 

“We heard a lot of legends about the Jedi on Tatooine,” Luke said cautiously. “But that’s all they ever were. Legends. I don’t think a single person alive on the planet had ever met a Jedi - that they knew of anyway, since Ben was in hiding. Except my Aunt and Uncle I suppose, not that they ever mentioned it.” He was hoping to suggest that whatever his father might want to tell him about the Jedi would have to be accepted as the truth, that there was nothing Luke knew to contradict even the worst Imperial propaganda - but by the faint trace of amusement, Vader was well aware that Luke was making a clumsy attempt at manipulation.

“The Outer Rim territories rightly never had great respect for the Jedi,” his father said. “Their legends may not be factual, but in spirit they are closer to the truth than the lies of the Old Republic.”

“They were meant to be guardians of peace and order.” Ben had mentioned something to that effect.

“Whose peace and order?” his father said coldly. “That of a corrupt Senate? A Republic sliding closer to chaos each year? Or their own whims? By the end of the war they certainly had delusions of setting up their own state.”

Luke shook his head. This was starting to get into territory he wasn’t sure he was ready to deal with. He didn’t know the first thing about politics, so how could he tell what sounded right here? “Where was my mother in all of this?” he asked. “You said she was a senator, right?”

“She was nothing like the rest,” Vader said. “She had _principles_. The Empire… it was meant to be for _her_.” 

Luke’s blood ran cold. He didn’t know why - he didn’t know what his mother might have felt about the Empire, but some instinct, or perhaps the whisper of the Force, told him she wouldn’t have wanted this. Not the killing, the purges, the subjugation… “What happened?” he asked quietly. 

His father fell silent again. “By that time it was already too late,” he said eventually. “Kenobi had lied to her about me, about the Emperor, about what we had done to ensure the safety of the new Empire. In time I would have showed her that it was for the best, but...I do not know how she died. For a long time I thought she perished on Mustafar.”

“Mustafar…” The vision. That had to be it! That was what they had seen! Should he press, should he ask more about what had happened there? But there was a tense, fragile quality to the silence that had fallen between them that said no. It wouldn’t be wise, not right now. There would be plenty of time for him to ask more in the future. “Will you tell me more about her?” he asked instead. 

“I shall,” Vader replied. “Later. For the moment, we must deal with Commander Organa.” 

Luke opened his mouth to ask another question but then he felt it too; the ripple in the Force. Further out from the planet, a ship dropped out of hyperspace. It was an Alderaanian cruiser, and he barely had to reach out to sense that Leia was on board. He smiled. There was something about her being here that was comforting, even if this was far from the best of circumstances. 

“I’ll get Han,” he said. 

Vader nodded. “We shall see what trap the Commander has in store for us,” he replied.

\----

**0 ABY - Alderaanian cruiser _Advocate_ , Bandomeer system, Meerian Sector, Outer Rim**

“Have the technicians finished with that yacht?” Leia asked, scanning the view of this system’s third planet from the bridge. They had only just dropped out of hyperspace; not enough time to scan for the _Falcon_ yet, but she had a firm feeling that it wasn’t far away. There, wasn’t that a flash of grey against the blackness of space? Her eyes fixed on it until she was certain. Yes. It was here. Han was here. So was Luke… and Vader.

“Yes, your majesty,” Captain Rillan replied. “He won’t get far in _that_ ship.”

“Good.” Leia smiled. She had all of this planned out. “Have we got sensor lock on the _Falcon_?”

“Affirmative,” one of the technicians replied. 

“Hail Vader. Tell him we’re ready to make the exchange.”

The reply came quickly. Not that Leia was entirely focusing on it; she was keeping an eye on the terminal reporting the results of their long-range scans. It seemed that at the moment all three of Bandomeer’s Star Destroyers were where they ought to be; in orbit around the mining planet. Not that it meant much. 

“We _are_ jamming all transmissions out of this area, aren’t we?” she asked, and was given a swift confirmation. Good. No calls for help from Vader. “Start tractoring the yacht out of our hanger then.”

The _Falcon_ skimmed through space towards them. At the speeds the Corellian freighter was capable of it wouldn’t be easy to get a targeting lock on them, not from a cruiser. The thought wasn’t one she was really considering anyway. It was one thing to claim that she, Han and Luke would all gladly give their lives to see Vader ended when she was there in the thick of it with them. It was another thing entirely to fire on them from a capital ship. 

The Nubian yacht glided away from the _Advocate_ slowly. The _Falcon_ slowed and came to meet it as the tractor beam disengaged, turning to present its dorsal surface and the airlock there. The two vessels docked with apparent ease, although Leia knew very well how difficult such a maneuver was when only one of the ships had a pilot at the helm. Which one of them was it, she wondered? Luke, Han or Vader? Not that it mattered. Good piloting wouldn’t save that monster. 

Waiting was getting on her nerves. Leia resisted the urge to pace. She was calculating timing in her head. How long to climb the ladder from the _Falcon_ to the _Amidala_ , navigating the tricky gravity orientation change? How long to run a systems diagnostic, find nothing _apparently_ wrong, and disengage? What if Luke decided to do something typical of him and choose this moment to try to escape Vader? 

Then, finally, the airlocks separated with the slight puff of venting residual atmosphere. 

“Check in with Captain Solo and ready the tractor beam again,” she ordered. 

“Solo confirms he’s alive, and alone on the _Falcon_ ,” came the rapid reply. “Both his sub-lights and hyperdrive appear to have been left in working order, according to his diagnostics.”

That should have made her suspicious. If Vader had enacted his own sabotage, they would have had to use the _Advocate’s_ tractor beam to pull the _Falcon_ on board to leave the system, but he hadn’t Later, she realised that this was Vader’s attempt at honour - Han was no longer part of this fight. But in the moment the thought did not occur to her. “Lock on to the yacht then,” she said. “Let’s hope this works when he tries to run.”

\----

**0 ABY - J-327 Nubian yacht _Padmé Amidala_ , Bandomeer system, Meerian Sector, Outer Rim**

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Luke said, as he followed his father into the yacht. It was just as bright inside as out, clean and elegant in a way that made Vader look a little out of place. But as soon as those heavy durasteel boots hit the deck a kind of tension went out of the Force. _Home_ , Luke thought, and then wondered if that had really been _him_ thinking it at all. 

“Commander Organa will certainly have laid a trap for me,” his father told him, striding through the ship. Luke had to jog to keep up. “The cockpit is here. I will rely on your evasive maneuvers until I have made the repairs.”

“What’s broken?” Luke asked.

“ _That_ I have yet to discover.”

That didn’t make Luke feel any better. He settled into the pilot’s chair, running his hands over the unfamiliar controls. The soft, red synth-leather of his seat had a comfortable, well-worn quality that spoke of many years of use. The bulk of the Alderaanian cruiser loomed outside, closer than was comfortable considering the situation. He began activating the ship’s systems, running a quick diagnostic as he did so. 

“Authorisation needed,” the ship told him, a code input box blinking on the screen. 

“Damn it,” Luke said to himself. “Now what?”

“Voice-print recognised. Access granted.”

“Ummm.” Luke wasn’t sure he wanted to know how his father had gotten his hands on his voiceprint. He probably wouldn’t like the answer to that particular question. Better to just ignore it. The diagnostic at least seemed to indicate that everything was in working order - which was suspicious in and of itself. 

He was just wondering what to do next when the ship’s internal comms crackled. “Disengage the airlock,” his father told him. “Organa will become suspicious if we delay any further.”

“Okay,” Luke replied, starting the process. “Have you found out what the problem is?”

“I will be having _words_ with these Rebel engineers.” Even with half the ship between them, Vader’s anger still felt just as strong as when he was standing right beside him. That wasn’t a good sign, and neither was the growl in his voice. “Even given their aims this is a slovenly job.”

“Can you fix it?” 

“Yes. They have removed several limiters on the sub-light engines; you will have to monitor their fluctuations individually from there whilst I focus on the hyperdrive motivator.” 

“Okay… okay, I can do this.” It was either that or find out exactly how big an explosion a couple of modified Headon-5 engines were capable of making. 

“They will be attempting to get a tractor lock on us,” his father reminded him. “I suggest you do not let them.”

“ _E chu ta_ ,” Luke swore under his breath, and grabbed the controls. The yacht accelerated far faster than he expected, jetting away from the _Falcon_. He compensated quickly, mindful of the slight tremors that were starting to run through the ship, and sent them in a tight, controlled spin that would bring them round and in close to the cruiser. When tangling with a capital ship, closer was always better. The point defence batteries started up, red bolts streaking around their path, but the Alliance ship wasn’t trying too hard. Probably they were hoping the sabotaged engines would do their job for them. 

“Slow, and bring us around directly behind their bridge,” Vader ordered over the comms. 

Luke wanted to ask why, but his father sounded distracted. He’d never actually worked on a hyperdrive himself - in fact he’d never even _seen_ one before leaving Tatooine - but he was well aware just how complicated they were. Fixing one couldn’t be easy, and it couldn’t be much longer before the Alliance tired of this and sent out fighters. If the yacht had been in its normal condition Luke wouldn’t have worried, but he seriously doubted he could dodge X-wings without pushing the engines just that little bit too hard. He curved another loop around the cruiser and did as he’d been told. As he slowed to hover over the rear surface of the bridge-tower he realised the logic; none of the ship’s guns were set up to be able to reach them here. 

Suddenly the yacht shuddered. Luke yelped and scanned the engine readouts, worried that something had just gone horribly wrong. But everything looked fine. 

“I have deployed the magnetic clamp,” his father told him, in a way that sounded almost reassuring. 

“You’re… going to pull us onto the cruiser’s hull?” Luke asked, confused. “Why?”

“I intend to layer our shields in such a way as to interlock with those of the capital ship,” Vader replied. 

“What?” If anything, that only made him more confused. “Can you even do something like that? Surely the difference in the energy fields… the interactions would…”

“It is perfectly safe if done correctly.” 

“I don’t think this plan sounds like a very good idea,” Luke said hesitantly. 

“Young one, trust me.” 

‘Young one’ Luke mouthed to himself. He felt like he should be insulted, but this _was_ his father speaking. If anyone was allowed to call him something like that… still! He was almost twenty!

“It will give us the time we need to complete the repairs,” Vader said. 

Luke watched uncomfortably as the rough grey hull of the Alderaanian ship moved closer through the viewscreen. This seemed dangerous, but he _did_ trust that his father knew what he was doing. He could sense nothing but calm confidence from him - and anger, but that was always present. He sank back in the chair, resigned to waiting. He suppose he could have volunteered to help with the hyperdrive, but he had a feeling that he would only have been in the way. Vader seemed to have everything well in hand. 

\----

**0 ABY - Alderaanian cruiser _Advocate_ , Bandomeer system, Meerian Sector, Outer Rim**

“What is Vader _doing_?” Leia shouted to the bridge at large as the Nubian yacht leapt away from the _Falcon_. “He’s going to do the job of killing himself for us!”

“There’s no way he could have rewired the engines to compensate for removing the limiters,” Captain Rillan said. “Even the best pilot in the galaxy couldn’t keep the sub-lights in check long enough to get away from us. _Something_ will blow before too long.”

“He’s not trying to flee,” Leia growled, following the ship’s erratic course as it slid towards them at some eccentric angle. “Are the weapons hot on that thing?”

Rillan shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

“Then why is he coming to us?”

“Do you want us to fire?” the Lieutenant at weapons control asked. 

“Yes, but aim to disable,” Leia replied. “That was the whole point of this; to take him alive and recover his hostage! If he wasn’t so arrogant as to think he can survive _flying_ that death-trap we’ve made…” 

“We’ve lost the targeting solution!” the Lieutenant - Mithan, wasn’t it? - said, half-rising from her seat in her alarm. “He’s… found a blind spot for our guns.”

“Where?” Leia demanded, coming over to look at the terminals herself. The _Advocate’s_ external blueprints spread out in front of her, blinking with a hundred informative updates of ship systems which were of less concern to her right now that Vader’s _exact_ location. 

“To the rear of the bridge tower.” Lieutenant Mithan pointed. “And…” she blinked. “There’s some _really_ strange readings coming from our shields there.”

Leia felt a horrible suspicion rise up in the back of her mind. “Get a security team as close as they can to that point of the hull,” she said. No time to launch fighters; by the time they were in position their target would no longer be anywhere they could reach.

“You can’t possibly be suggesting…” Captain Rillan said, turning ashen. 

“That kriffing suit of his doesn’t care if he’s in atmosphere or vacuum - it’ll protect him all the same,” Leia said, nodding. “And if there’s one thing that can cut through meters of durasteel plating, it’s a lightsaber. So yes, Captain, I _am_ saying exactly that. He’s going to board us.”

\----

**0 ABY - J-327 Nubian yacht _Padme Amidala_ , Bandomeer system, Meerian Sector, Outer Rim**

There was no sign of any fighters. Luke knew the cruiser had to have some, so where were they? Even if they couldn’t risk firing on them when they were so closer to the Alliance ship’s hull, he would have thought they would at least send out a couple of X-wings to try and catch them when they tried to run. They couldn’t stay here forever, after all! He’d never have thought he would say something like this under the circumstances, but he was _bored_. 

Sighing, he activated the internal comms. “Father, how are the repairs to the hyperdrive going?” he asked, trying not to sound too impatient. He knew he should just wait, that the job wasn’t exactly a simple one… 

There wasn’t any reply. Luke frowned. He tried pushing the comm button again, thinking perhaps it was just the unfamiliar systems, but no, he could hear the faint buzz of the open connection and the hum of machinery from the engine bay. So… why wasn’t Vader answering? Surely there wasn’t anything that could have gone wrong in such a short space of time? Was he just one of these people that got so wrapped up in fixing a problem that they barely paid any attention to the rest of the world around them? Maybe that was it. And he didn’t feel anything unusual through the Force. 

In fact, he wasn’t feeling much of anything of his father through the Force. That was more worrying. This strange connection they had… he had been able to feel _something_ from Vader ever since leaving Vrogas Vas, so why would that change? 

This wasn’t right. Luke left the cockpit, sure now that he had to investigate. It wasn’t as though he had been doing anything critical up there anyway. 

The ship was quiet and still. Luke trotted down the stairs to the lower deck and by dint of some exploring found the room where the hyperspace engine was housed. At the moment it had been elevated up out of its housing underneath the flooring and showed signs of recent repair. However, everything seemed to be finished. To Luke’s admittedly inexperienced eye, it looked functional. Recently soldered wiring and circuitry was in place, and all that seemed left was to let it slot back down into proper position. So… where was his father? 

Luke reached out for their connection. It had been continuing to grow stronger, and now he could envision it as a physical link between his mind and Vader’s. There was nothing wrong with his end, but it felt as though a wall had been built up at the other side - or perhaps a set of blast doors lowered. He couldn’t get any sense of what his father was feeling or doing right now. Luke resisted the urge to curse in frustration. 

It shouldn’t be _hard_ to find his father in the Force, surely! His presence was so strong! Even without this particular connection, if he just stretched his senses out… even if he wasn’t very good at it he should be able to feel something… 

Luke knelt down on the hard metal floor and tried to concentrate. He knew what the Force felt like, he knew what it was like to touch it, he had done it without thinking about it before… It came almost easily this time. The Alderaanian ship was beneath him, all the lives on it like the lights of stars in the distance. And there was Leia - he didn’t know how he knew it was her, but he would have recognised her anywhere. And… his father. Cold fire, a dark sun burning, deadly and burning with rage.

On board the Alliance cruiser. 

No! What had he done?! How had he even managed to get in there? There was an airlock on the yacht but Luke hadn’t seen any vacuum suits. Except... that Vader wouldn’t need one. And his lightsaber would be able to cut a way inside.

 _I can’t stop him_ , Luke thought. _I can’t go after him through_ vacuum. _He’s going to kill them all and there’s nothing I can do about it._

_Father, you promised you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. Please, don’t do this._

Luke’s thoughts churned inside his skull. He fought to think of a solution. Maybe he couldn’t board the cruiser the same way Vader had, but there had to be another way! If he could find the control to disengage the magnetic clamp, he could skim close enough to the cruiser’s hull to make it to their hangar bay. Once inside, he had Alliance passwords that would prove who he was. He didn’t have much time, but he had to try! Lives were depending on it.

He had to stop his father from doing this. 

\----

**0 ABY - Alderaanian cruiser _Advocate_ , Bandomeer system, Meerian Sector, Outer Rim**

Leia watched the destruction from the bridge cameras. The moment they had identified the hull segment where Vader was cutting through, the blast-doors had been lowered around that area. That hadn’t held him for long. After the first time he’d carved a hole through into the next part of a corridor - with the natural result of depressurising it - she had ordered them to let him through the next one and close it behind him, purely so that her soldiers would have an atmosphere to breath when they tried to fight him. She hadn’t been expecting their success, not against that monster, not in confined spaces which favoured him, but even one lucky hit…

There had been no such luck. Vader was a one man army, seemingly untouchable, projecting an aura of terror wherever he went. He was coming straight for the bridge, and it wouldn’t be long before he made it here. 

“Pull them back,” Leia ordered, as the camera caught a good view of another Rebel sliced in half by that deadly red blade. “This is pointless. We’ll have to make our stand here.”

“Yes your majesty,” Rillan replied, kind enough not to point out that they were no more likely to be successful. She had expected some trap from Vader, but nothing so bold as this! Piloting a ship made deadly to the slightest wrong move just so he could mount a one man boarding action where it would be the hardest to stop him and with the most for him to gain… She had underestimated him. She should have known better. 

Leia drew the lightsaber from her jacket. At least they had this. It might not be enough, but it would at least slow him down. Fighting him herself might buy the bridge crew the opportunity to shoot him in the back; surely he couldn’t defend from blasters _and_ a lightsaber at once! 

Vader stalked onwards through the now-deserted corridors. For a moment, she thought she saw him stop, hesitate, but whatever had caused that soon passed. He continued on until he stood in front of the triple-thickness blast doors that guarded the bridge. Without hesitation, his blade plunged into the metal, hilt deep. From her own side of the doors Leia could see the cherry-red glow start to appear, small at first but rapidly growing in size and brightness. Molten durasteel started to run down the inner surface of the doors, gradually revealing the spitting red tip of the lightsaber. 

Cutting through was not a quick procedure. Leia watched the slow arc form and wondered if it almost might be better to let him through. At least _that_ would get it over with. She could practically taste the fear in the air, and the wait was only making things worse. This felt like being trapped like lopers in a burrow with a hungry garral outside. 

“Hold steady,” she said out loud. “Be patient everyone. Make sure our systems are shut down - we have to limit what damage he can do from here.” If she couldn’t save the bridge crew, at least she might be able to save everyone else.

A man-sized semicircle of durasteel pushed forwards with a shriek of metal on metal. It slid to one side to reveal Vader, his hand still held out before him. The monster took his time, ducking under the still-glowing rim of the opening he had created and stalking forward, his lightsaber held before him. Leia ignited her own, feeling the warmth of the green plasma against her face. 

“Organa,” Vader snarled. He no longer sounded cold, emotionless. He was more than angry; he was _furious_. “You will _pay_ for your actions.”

“If you’ve come to kill me you can certainly _try_ ,” Leia replied. She had anger of her own, and plenty of it. It didn’t matter to her why Vader had taken up some kind of personal vendetta against her, although given that this seemed to have arisen in the short time since Vrogas Vas it had to have something to do with the _Amidala_. She had faced death at the Empire’s hands before, and she would not give in to it quietly. She would fight back. 

Vader said nothing more. He strode towards her, heedless of the bridge officers opening fire on him. Blaster bolts were batted aside in a flurry of red and then he was on her. The crimson lightsaber swept down and Leia blocked instinctively. The blades crackled together for a moment before Vader attacked again. There was no longer any time for Leia to pay attention to anything else going on in the room; it was as much as she could do to stay alive. She wasn’t thinking about what she was doing, she was just reacting, and although it was working better than she had hoped she wouldn’t stay lucky for long. 

Then suddenly all she felt was pain. Her right wrist exploded into fire and she stumbled backwards, unable to keep herself from crying out. Her hand… her hand was gone. Leia looked down at the cauterised stump in horror. Vader paused only long enough to deflect a few further shots from the crew and then raised the red blade for the killing blow. 

Another lightsaber hummed into existence between them. Leia looked up to see just about the last possible person she had expected. Luke Skywalker. How had he even gotten here? He stood between them - Leia could only see his back but determination was written in every line of his body. 

“Stand aside,” Vader said. 

“No,” Luke replied. He wasn’t attacking… but neither was Vader. Even the blaster shots died away as the whole room watched the confrontation playing out in front of them. Leia did her best to focus past the pain. She had felt worse than this. Vader had done worse than this to her. 

“You were meant to remain on the ship, young one,” Vader said. 

“Did you really think I wasn’t going to notice!” Luke shouted. “Leia is my _friend_. Everyone on board this cruiser… why are you doing this? It’s me you wanted - we could have just left here!”

 _Because this is war,_ Leia wanted to answer him. Luke knew that as well as everyone else, why was he choosing now to be naive? 

“You are well aware what your _friend_ has done to Padme’s ship,” Vader growled. The way he said it made it sound… personal, Leia realised. This wasn’t fear of his Master’s punishment for losing the vessel. This was something else. But… what? Why would a Nubian royal yacht matter so much to a monster like Vader? 

“So you were going to kill her for it!” Luke said. “No. I won’t let you.”

“That is not up to you. Return to the ship.”

“No,” Luke said. And then, quietly enough that Leia must have been the only person close enough to hear it. “Father… you made me a promise. I’m going to keep you to it..”

What? _Father_? Leia went cold. For some reason she didn’t doubt in the slightest that this was the truth - she was certain that Vader really was Luke’s father. But how was that possible? How could someone as good as Luke possibly have that brute in his family? 

Vader’s helmet turned from his son’s face towards hers. He knew she had heard that, she realised. She could almost feel his rage shimmering through the air between them. Leia grit her teeth and struggled to her feet, leaning heavily on a control panel for support. Pain stabbed up and down her arm. 

“A quick death is more than you deserve Organa,” he finally said. “This is not over.”

Vader’s lightsaber deactivated with a hiss, and she watched Luke relax. He too put his blade away. Then with one swift, unexpected motion Vader grabbed Luke by the waist and bodily heaved him over his shoulder. Luke yelped. “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

“Securing my hostage,” Vader announced, clearly making sure that his words carried to the bridge at large, and stalked away. 

Leia leaned back against the controls and did her best not to fall over. The ship and everyone on board were safe now but… what she had learned was disturbing. Luke’s father was Anakin Skywalker, which meant Vader… She was going to have to discuss this with Mon Mothma. She had been a senator in the old Republic. She had known the Jedi Knights of the Clone Wars. Perhaps she would know what to do about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well _someone_ was gonna lose a hand! Plus, obligatory manhandling.


	12. Part Two: Vjun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vjun is not quite what Aphra or Ezra expected, Leia gets a hand with starting her investigation, and Luke faces some uncomfortable truths about his situation.

**0 ABY - J-327 Nubian yacht _Padmé Amidala_ , Bandomeer to Vjun**

Vader’s mind was filled with the burning rage of justice delayed. Organa yet lived, despite that she had _dared_ to harm Padmé’s ship, had _desecrated_ her memory by doing so. His anger, and the cloak of the Dark Side it drew to it, were so thick around him that every rasp of his respirator seemed to draw it in and out of his lungs. He tasted the ash of Mustafar’s choking air on his tongue. 

The moment he boarded the yacht with Luke still wriggling over his shoulder he put the boy down and headed for the cockpit, locking the door behind him. He didn’t trust himself around his son at the moment. The boy’s actions weren’t his fault - he had never known Padmé, he couldn’t truly appreciate the insult that Organa had given her, he could only think of his friend first. But only half of him could appreciate that; the other half wanted to lash out and barely cared what target it might hit. He was _not_ going to allow that part control. 

He left the cruiser’s hangar at high speed - perhaps faster than was wise. The engines strained and vibrated with a high whine, but he calmed them a little with the Force. It gave him something to do, something to concentrate on that wasn’t pure rage. He plotted their jump into the nav computer and sent them smoothly into hyperspace, feeling the Force-presence of the lifeforms on the Rebel ship disappear behind them. The time would come, he promised himself, that he would have his revenge on Leia Organa. Perhaps when his son had finally embraced the power of the Dark Side, when Vader had told him more about his mother, perhaps then he would understand the necessity of doing so. 

Besides, one thing he had learned in the last two decades was patience. 

\----

**0 ABY - Bast Castle, Vjun, Nuiri sector, Outer Rim**

As the Major had promised, a trio of TIE-fighters met Aphra’s ship just above atmosphere, dropping into place behind them. The leader pinged their comm channel and Aphra answered it, her eyes remaining trained on the targeting computers. Ezra couldn’t blame her for being cautious. These were Lord Vader’s men but… the instincts of mistrust had been well trained into him. You couldn’t count on another Inquisitor to have your back if they sensed weakness, let alone a member of one of the other Imperial military services. 

“You’ll want to keep your shields up until we reach Bast Castle,” the squadron leader said. “The rain here is… well, you’ll see. Transmitting flight path to you now.” 

“Why would I put my shields _down_?” Aphra asked rhetorically, although the channel wasn’t active when she said it, Ezra noticed. She pulled up the information that had been sent over and looked through it, then adjusted their course planetward. 

The TIE escort continued to shadow the _Ark Angel_ as it soared down through thick, poisonous-looking cloud cover and into a storm. Fat droplets splattered on the shields over the viewscreen and evaporated with hisses of energy. Lightning flashed nearby. Ezra might not have been the one at the controls, but he could feel the way the winds were buffeting their craft. How did the TIE’s even fly in this? 

After a short while a dark spire loomed ahead of them, too thin to be a mountain, but impressive in its height. Buildings nestled at the foot, and windows glowed like so many tiny lights. In the darkness of the cloud cover it would have been easy to miss this place for all its size, save for when lightning lit it up briefly and brilliantly. Ezra began to realise that he’d been wrong. This _was_ Lord Vader’s Sith retreat. And they had been told to come here, specifically. Equal amounts of excitement and terror thrilled through him. 

The fighters directed them to land in a hangar bay at ground level of the complex. It wasn’t the only one; there were a number of massive durasteel doors set all along the outer wall of the building. Ezra wondered why bother when there didn’t seem to be any other people out here. Magnetic fields would have done the job of keeping out the rain just as well. So what threat were the doors protecting from?

Once the _Ark Angel_ had landed inside the docking bay, Ezra followed Aphra out to where they were met by a squad of stormtroopers, plus Major Damant. The stormtroopers were… not standard. The armour didn’t look quite right, as though the design was subtly different, and there were blue markings everywhere. Ezra had been taught all of the details of the Imperial military as part of Inquisitorius training, including marks of rank and specialisation. These weren’t in any of the files he had seen. And yet they did seem somehow familiar… He supposed they were specific to Lord Vader. Vader’s Fist, the fabled 501st Legion, were all the best of the best. Vader’s personal guard could only be of superlative quality. 

“Greetings, Twelfth Brother, Doctor Aphra,” Major Damant said, nodding to them both cordially. “Rooms have been assigned for your use. I have been instructed to take you to them until Lord Vader returns. The droids also.”

“I’m sure they’d be happy to stay with the ship,” Aphra said. “This is a hell of a facility you’ve got here, but Triple-Zero tends to get irritable with nothing to do.”

“Our instructions were clear.”

Aphra shrugged. “I’ll fetch them,” she said, and disappeared back up the ramp. 

Ezra waited for her uncomfortably. The Major wasn’t staring at him, but it certainly felt like he was. Or perhaps it was the troopers. Someone had an eye for aesthetics - this squad were all exactly the same height. If it weren’t for the small variations in their armour markings he would never have been able to tell one from the other. Not that it was ever easy, but Ezra had been taught to manage it, and the Force helped. But even their Force signatures were strangely uniform. 

Aphra reappeared with her two droids and Luke’s astromech behind her. “I think we’re ready for the grand tour,” she said, grinning. 

“Not that one,” Major Damant said, pointing. Artoo gave a little warble of surprise. 

“You’re in charge,” Aphra said. “Although I hope you’re gonna be careful with it; I don’t think its master would be pleased if he doesn’t find it in the same condition he left it.”

Major Damant didn’t answer. He motioned to a pair of the troopers, who approached Artoo. The droid squawked and extended its shock probe in a threatening way. The Major sighed. “Droid - unit R2-D2. Recall the Socorro campaign?”

Whatever kind of code that was, it pacified Artoo. He put away the probe and followed the two stormtroopers with happy beeps. Ezra wondered at the significance of this, but it was hardly important right now. He would have the chance to ask Luke when he and Lord Vader arrived. 

“Now that’s over, shall we proceed?” Major Damant said. 

He and Aphra followed the Major, Beetee and Triple-Zero following on behind. Even though they were only passing through unremarkable corridors, Ezra still found it hard to contain his excitement. Bast Castle was built entirely out of black stone, black duracrete, black plasteel, with the occasional highlight of dull chrome. There were shadows everywhere, shadows that almost felt alive. Occasionally he saw more stormtroopers, a glaring contrast in their white armour even despite those blue markings. The Dark Side pressed in all around him. 

Aphra noticed, of course. She might have had some cutting words to say - he could still feel her dislike for him - if it wasn’t for her own evident curiosity. “What’s gotten into you?” she finally asked.

Ezra tried to think of how to explain it. “This place is… it’s sacred,” he said. “There have always been rumours in the Inquisitorius about Lord Vader’s Sith retreat and I never thought I would actually get to _be_ here! I didn’t think anyone but those highest up in the Imperial hierarchy even knew where it was!”

Aphra didn’t say much in return, although she hummed thoughtfully, but her pleasure was obvious. But not for the same reasons. The ways of the Force meant little to her. She didn’t respect Darth Vader because he was a Sith, she respected him because he was _powerful._ If Vjun was important to him, then it was important to her.

Just walking through the halls of the castle was an experience in itself. Everything here was steeped in the power of the Dark Side. It was like being back on Mustafar, but without all the bad memories. Not that he ought to be shying away from those memories, Ezra admitted to himself. The training was harsh for a reason, after all. If he couldn’t use the pain to his own advantage, what kind of Inquisitor was he? Still, here the underlying atmosphere seemed more.... melancholy somehow, rather than the constant current of vicious rage that it was easy to fall prey to on Mustafar. 

When they finally arrived at their quarters, which were more luxurious than they really deserved, Ezra took advantage of the showers - real hot water! - to wash away some of the sweat and dirt of Vrogas Vas. He therefore missed some kind of drama with Triple-Zero and one of the stormtroopers. The first he knew of it was when he stepped out of the fresher and saw Aphra arguing with an angry trooper while two others dragged one of their comrades away, hanging limply between them. After a moment the trooper with the arrow painted on his helmet whirled away and strode out of the room. 

“Idiots,” Aphra said, to the room at large. “I told them to stay out of our way.”

“I don’t even want to know,” Ezra replied, sitting down on one of the couches and trying to untangle his wet hair with his fingers. He hadn’t been able to find a comb. 

“I’ve sent BeeTee and Triple-Zero into that bedroom,” Aphra said, pointing. “Don’t go inside - or maybe do! I could do with a good laugh.”

“I’m sure Lord Vader will arrive soon,” Ezra said, thinking that might be the source of her apparent agitation. 

“I hope we don’t have to stay here too long,” Aphra replied, glaring around the perfectly innocent room. “This isn’t my scene. I don’t _hang around_ with the Empire - that hasn’t historically ended very well for me.” Ezra wasn’t buying it - moments ago she had been just as excited to be here as he was. Maybe it was just the presence of the troops that was putting her on edge.

“Maybe Lord Vader will have something else for you to do while he trains his son,” Ezra suggested. 

“Man, did I misjudge that kid,” Aphra said, shaking her head. “Vader Junior… Those Jedi have a lot to answer for.”

“Yes,” Ezra said, letting the rage flash through him. “But everything will be put right now.”

“You’ve changed your tune all of a sudden,” Aphra sneered. “What happened to ‘kriff Lord Vader’s orders, I do what I like’?”

“I was doing as the Force guided me!” Ezra replied, meeting her anger with his own. “I was _helping_ Luke!”

“And now?”

“If you’re asking me whose side I’m on, it doesn’t matter! There are no sides here.”

“You think after two decades of Jedi indoctrination this kid is just going to accept the truth?” Aphra asked. “That he’s going to become a good little Sith? We’re all going to have to pull together here to get Luke to see the light and help Lord Vader’s plans along.”

“He doesn’t need _our_ help,” Ezra said. “He’s a Lord of the Sith!”

Aphra frowned. “The mark of a good leader is knowing how to use the skills of those around you,” she said. “And I think you’d be the first to be thankful that Lord Vader knows that, since it’s the only reason you’re still alive. If you weren’t useful to him in some way I doubt Luke’s words would have saved you.”

Somehow Ezra felt that wasn’t true, and that Aphra was well aware of that fact. But she was so loyal to Vader that it practically burned in the Force, and in her eyes he was nothing but a traitor. She would say a lot of dubious things if they would hurt him. And lying was familiar to her; she _was_ a smuggler after all. 

“My goal here is to see Luke become a Sith,” he said. “To see him at his father’s side where he belongs. I’ll do what I can to make that happen.”

“Then we’re on the same side,” Aphra said, with a smile that was more of a threat. “So long as you remember you work for Lord Vader, _not_ his Jedi-raised son.”

Ezra wasn’t about to forget it. Second chances didn’t come around more than once. 

\----

**0 ABY - Alderaanian cruiser _Advocate_ , Bandomeer system, Meerian Sector, Outer Rim**

Leia had wanted to contact Mon immediately, but Captain Rillan had talked enough sense into her to receive proper medical attention first. She had to admit to herself that she probably wasn’t thinking clearly at the moment. Her brain was flooded with stress chemicals and endorphins and frankly, her head was spinning. Rillan escorted her personally down to the med bay, possibly to make sure she didn’t get distracted en route, then left her in the care of the senior medic and her droids. 

The first thing they did was to give her an injection of painkillers. It wasn’t until she felt her muscles relax and her jaw unclench that she realised how bad it had been. Her head felt a very little bit clearer, but the world still felt as though it was happening at a remove, as though her body existed several feet away from her. Her severed hand and the lightsaber it was still clutching had been retrieved from the floor of the bridge, but a cursory examination had Doctor Os Kel tutting to herself and looking unhappy. 

“There’s too much damage to the tissues to reattach it,” the Mon Cal told Leia. “In the interests of honesty, I’ve never seen a lightsaber wound before, although I’ve read about them. The blade’s heat causes internal burns to a significant radius around the obvious injury - even with bacta this will result in heavy scarring within most of your forearm. Our only option is to amputate up to healthy tissue and have a cybernetic replacement made.” 

The idea was unpleasant, but Leia wasn’t about to ignore reality. If Os Kel said this was the only way, then she trusted her medical opinion. “How long will it take to have it built?” she asked.

“A temporary prosthetic will be available in a matter of days,” the doctor replied. “We will need to take scans of your other hand for correct measurements of the permanent prosthetic, and manufacturing the parts will take some weeks. There are companies which sell cybernetics to civilians, but the best models are only available to Imperial military and their sale is closely controlled. We can do better ourselves.”

“Fine,” Leia said. “It doesn’t matter to me what it looks like as long as it does what I need it to.”

“It would be best if we perform the initial surgery immediately,” the doctor said. “To allow for clean healing. There is a risk of infection otherwise.”

“I need to speak to Mon Mothma…” Leia objected. 

“Is it time sensitive?” 

“I… no. I suppose not.” She did feel very weary. Perhaps it would be better to get this over with. She could sleep, and talk to Mon when she was sharper. 

“Then we shall prepare.” Os Kel motioned her droids over, and had Leia lie down on a narrow white plas bed nearby. She felt the sting of something in the crook of her arm. “Just relax. When you wake up, the procedure will be over with.”

Leia drifted off on a haze of clouds, and did not dream.

\----

When she woke up, she didn’t hurt anywhere. Leia sat up cautiously, fully expecting the momentary light-headedness that had her blinking for a moment, and looked down at where her right hand used to be. The stump was being supported by a sling around her neck and had been encased in some kind of medical capsule, a readout beeping on its side. She suspected it was probably full of bacta solution. She slipped off the bed and looked around. Doctor Os Kel was nowhere to be seen, but one of the droids looked up at her sudden movements and wheeled over. 

“Greetings Commander Organa,” it said. “The surgery went well. You are free to leave at your convenience, but please return after a day cycle so that we can check that healing is progressing. I have also been authorised to supply you with these analgesics.” It held out a little tub in its multi-tool claws towards her. She took it and checked inside; it was full of tiny white capsules. 

“Thank you,” she said. “Is there a comm terminal around here?” She didn’t feel quite up to walking back to her temporary quarters, or to the bridge.

“Affirmative,” the droid relied. “I shall show you.”

There was another room behind the main med bay. She sat down in the gratifyingly comfortable chair and told the droid it could go, then booted up the computer and activated the secure channel using her personal codes. She felt a lot better for her extended nap, although that might have been the painkillers talking. Her mind was not quite as sharp as she’d hoped, but she didn’t hurt anywhere. It would have to do. 

Mon Mothma answered her comm after a short wait. The holo showed that she was replying from a meeting room on board the current _Home One_ , along with Generals Dodonna and Rieekan. 

“It is good to see you well, Commander Organa,” Mon said. “Captain Rillan has already submitted his report of the events that occurred in the Bandomeer system. We are all glad that you survived Vader’s attack, but we were hoping to hear your own analysis of what happened.”

“You must admit that Vader acted… strangely,” Rieekan said, nodding. “No-one aside from yourself was close enough to hear what Skywalker said to him to cause him to break off his assault.”

“That is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about Mon,” Leia said. “You all know who Luke’s father is?”

“Yes,” Dodonna replied. “Anakin Skywalker, a Knight of the old Jedi Order. Although I’m not sure what that has to do with the current situation. Why, do you have some reason to believe that isn’t the case?”

“No, I’m sure that Luke is that man’s son,” Leia replied. “I just wondered if any of you had met him during the Clone Wars, or knew how he was supposed to have died?”

“ _Supposed_ to have died?” Mon raised an eyebrow. “You believe that what General Kenobi told Luke was incorrect?”

“Maybe. I’ll be more sure if I can get a better idea of what happened around the end of the Clone Wars.”

Dodonna shook his head. “I do not believe I ever actually met the Hero with No Fear,” he said apologetically. “He was not one of the Jedi I worked with during the war.”

“I _did_ meet General Skywalker several times during the Clone Wars,” Mon said. “He was often seen around the Senate building. He was particular friends with one of my colleagues; Senator Padmé Amidala.” Mon laughed softly. “I say colleague. She was a dear friend. In fact, she was one of the three of us who came up with the idea for the Alliance as a political entity, along with myself and your father.”

“What happened to her?” Leia said, surprised. That name… she had been looking for some sort of connection between Vader and Skywalker but she hadn’t expected to find one so easily! “My father never mentioned her.”

“She died - or was killed - just before Palpatine announced the formation of the Empire. We were all devastated to learn of her death - Bail was always convinced it was murder. He thought the Emperor had her assassinated.”

And then he had given Vader her regnal ship? Leia was only becoming more sure that Vader and Anakin Skywalker were one and the same. What exactly was the relationship between Skywalker and Senator Amidala? 

“So Anakin Skywalker was a friend of hers?” she asked. 

“Closer, I think, than just a friend,” Mon replied. “Not that there were ever anything but rumours, but the two of them weren’t very subtle. The way Padmé talked about him… Bail and I had long suspected they were lovers… and then she became pregnant. She refused to tell anyone who the father was, but who else could it have been?” 

“She was Luke’s mother?” Leia asked, eyes wide, unable to hide her shock. It all made sense now… Vader’s uncharacteristic protectiveness of that yacht was because of _her_. 

“That was my first reaction when he turned up,” Mon said. “But Padme was still pregnant at her funeral… or whoever killed her wanted everyone to think that was the case… I suppose it _is_ the only explanation. Bail was the one to recover her body, but he never mentioned anything about a son to me.”

“And where was Anakin during all this? Where was he at the end of the Clone Wars?”

“Let me think,” Mon said, hearing the tension in Leia’s voice and frowning. “The Jedi were always secretive and only more so in wartime - they kept their internal matters closed to the rest of the galaxy. It’s been a long time, and I’m not sure I remember exactly but… I _think_ General Skywalker had been appointed as the primary liaison between the Chancellor and the Jedi Council. He was on Coruscant when Order 66 was implemented. I would assume he was at the Jedi Temple when the clones marched on it; there is no way he could have survived. Even _he_ couldn’t have fought off an entire battalion.”

“Not unless he wasn’t fighting them at all,” Leia said. 

“What are you suggesting?” General Dodonna asked.

“That Anakin Skywalker is still very much alive, although not going by that name anymore,” Leia said. She felt angry enough to spit. So much for the Jedi hero of the Clone Wars Luke had looked up to! How long had Skywalker been working for Palpatine? How long had he been a traitor to all that was good and right in the galaxy? And Luke… how must he feel, now that he knew the truth? Vader clearly didn’t want him dead anymore, but she doubted that what he had planned for Luke would be anything pleasant. 

“What do you mean?” General Rieekan leaned forwards, looking excited. “If there’s another retired Jedi out there, if he’s anything like those that have worked with the Alliance before, if he’s like Fulcrum was…”

“No,” Leia replied, although she took note of that code name. Fulcrum… that sounded somehow familiar, but she had never heard of any Alliance Jedi before now. She hadn’t even thought there _had been_ any Jedi left aside from Kenobi. “There’s a reason that Vader backed down when Luke confronted him. What Luke said to him… he called him ‘Father’.”

The silence drew out, long and horrible. 

“No…” Mon said. “No surely not. _Skywalker?_ He was nothing _like_ Vader!”

“Hmmm…” Dodonna stroked his beard, looking troubled. “I may never had met him, but I knew his reputation. He was an excellent pilot and tactician, even if his plans tended to be… unusual at best. I cannot speak as to his character, but in military ability…”

“If only Kenobi was still alive so we could ask him,” Rieekan said. “From the story Luke Skywalker gave the Alliance, the Jedi had been very certain that Vader killed Anakin Skywalker. There must have been a reason for that.”

“What we really need is to ask another Jedi who was alive back then,” Mon said quietly. “Tell me Rieekan - _is_ Fulcrum still alive?”

“We haven’t heard anything from her in years,” General Rieekan replied. “She just went quiet one day. Bail was always her primary contact though - he knew how to contact her. I didn’t. But she was managing that cell out on the Outer Rim… Spectre, wasn’t it? If anyone knows what happened to her, they might.”

“Return to the fleet, and bring Captain Solo with you,” Mon Mothma ordered. “He might have heard something while he was a hostage. We can debrief the pair of you thoroughly, and then we can send you to meet with the Spectre cell and investigate this matter further.”

Leia nodded. “I’ll pass that on to Captain Rillan,” she said. 

\----

**0 ABY - J-327 Nubian yacht _Padmé Amidala_ , Bandomeer to Vjun**

Luke curled up in one of the chairs in the cabin outside the cockpit, glaring at the locked door. He could feel his father’s anger behind it like a black hole sucking in all the heat and light in the ship. He wasn’t exactly feeling cheerful himself. He’d seen enough of what his father had done during his run through the corridors of the Alliance cruiser; seen the corpses and the almost-corpses. He’d seen Leia, clutching the stump where her hand had been. It was one thing to know what Darth Vader was capable of, it was something else to see it in person. 

Why did he feel so betrayed? Had he really started thinking that just because Vader was his father, just because he’d happened to spare a few people because of Luke before, that everything else he was would just magically disappear? That he would stop being the Emperor’s executioner, the Empire’s terrifying war-leader? Had he really been that foolish? 

Luke blamed himself as much as he blamed his father. He hadn’t even suspected that Vader had a plan that he’d hidden from him until it was already in motion. He’d trusted him even though he knew exactly what sort of person Vader was. The way his father had treated him personally… the sense Luke had been getting that he genuinely cared about him… that had made him far too trusting.

At least in the end, he had been able to stop Vader before it was too late. He had been able to save Leia and everyone else still alive on that cruiser. His father _would_ listen to him even when he was the angriest Luke had ever sensed thus far. So… that was something? 

Luke sighed. What did he think he was doing here, exactly? He hadn’t tried to run at the temple because he hadn’t seen any way out, and he hadn’t tried to run later because his friend’s lives had been at stake - plus he had given his word. But what about when they arrived at this ‘Vjun’ place? What about when his father insisted that he learn the ways of the Sith, of the Dark Side? What would happen when he refused and kept on refusing? He didn’t know that he necessarily wanted to be a Jedi anymore, but he knew what he _didn’t_ want to be. 

His father seemed to have calmed down a bit now. Whatever wall he had built up along their strange connection had been taken down, and Luke could get a proper sense of him again. The Dark Side ebbed away a little, although it still filled the room on the other side of the door, reminding Luke uncomfortably of a hungry rancor. He felt movement… and then the door hissed open. Vader loomed, taking up the whole of the open space. 

“We will soon reach Vjun,” he said. “Aphra and the Twelfth Brother should have already arrived.”

Luke felt ever so slightly better about that. Even if Aphra had betrayed him and Ezra was an Inquisitor, at least he would have company that he knew! 

“What exactly is on this planet?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Bast Castle.” His father hesitated. “My… home.” 

Luke could feel from the way he said it that he didn’t really feel much connection to the place. Vader felt far more fondly about this yacht than whatever stronghold was implied by that name. But a castle meant troops, guards. It meant somewhere even harder to escape from - if that was really what he wanted. He had escaped the Death Star, so he knew it would be _possible_. But then what? He still had so many questions for his father. 

His father lingered in the doorway for a long, drawn out moment. Luke sensed that he was trying to think of something to say… not to apologise, not exactly. But something to ease the distance between them. Then he turned, cape swirling around him, and disappeared in silence. Luke put his heels up on the seat and hugged his knees, feeling small and inadequate. After a few seconds the ship shook gently as it emerged from hyperspace. Under normal circumstances he would have been eager to get a look at their destination but that would have involved venturing into the cockpit and facing his father. He didn’t feel quite ready for a proper conversation yet. 

Luke let himself get lost in his own thoughts until he felt the yacht settle onto solid ground. They had landed. He stood up and absent-mindedly brushed at his clothes as though that would remove the wrinkles or the musky scent that revealed he had been wearing this shirt for far too long. He took several deep breaths in and out, hoping it might settle his stomach. It didn’t. 

The cockpit door opened again. Vader swept past, only glancing at him to make sure he was following, and strode down the ramp as soon as it hit the ground. He was tall enough that he had to duck. There was some sort of… honour guard? waiting for them. Stormtroopers in unusual-looking helmets, blasters held at parade rest. An Imperial officer was waiting at the bottom of the ramp at attention, and another of the stormtroopers was standing at his right shoulder with his helmet tucked under his arm - a sergeant? Luke’s attention was immediately caught by the tattoo on his face - it wasn’t exactly subtle. Some kind of broken-up arrow shape stretching from his temple over his left eye and up again onto his forehead. His hair was greying and his face lined; he looked old enough to be retired. 

That tattoo couldn’t be regulation. And now he was looking, these troopers’ armour wasn’t the usual flat white either. There were blue markings everywhere, lines and circles and strange patterns. There must be some kind of meaning to them, but Luke had never seen anything like it before. He couldn’t even hazard a guess. Was it something to do with Vader, with being here? Perhaps it was because they were his personal guard? But if so, wouldn’t they have been with him on his campaigns in the past, visible in the background of the propaganda holos? 

Just more questions. Luke squared his shoulders and did his best not to look intimidated. 

“Lord Vader,” the officer said. “Welcome back to Vjun.”

“Major Damant,” Vader replied, nodding acknowledgement. “Commander Dogma. Status report.”

“Milord, your other guests arrived one rotation ago,” the Major said, and Luke’s heart jumped with sudden happiness. He was _really_ looking forward to seeing Ezra again. He just wanted someone to _talk_ to, even if their perspective was guaranteed to be nothing like his own. “They have settled into their assigned quarters with minimal trouble.”

“Trouble?” Luke didn’t like the way his father said that. He might not be as angry now as on the Alliance cruiser but that didn’t mean he was in a good mood by a long shot. 

“The droids,” Commander Dogma said, with audible disgust. “Clankers got their hands on one of the troopers, had it in their heads to have some fun with him. Managed to get him out alive though. Would have deactivated the damn things but your smuggler said you wouldn’t be pleased.” 

That was a level of… not exactly disrespect, but casualness that Luke wouldn’t have expected anyone to get away with using around Darth Vader. But his father didn’t seem angry at all. In fact he already seemed more at ease. Bast Castle itself might not be home, but the people here clearly meant something. 

“I will be in my rooms,” Vader announced. “Escort Luke to the others. He will appreciate the company.” So Luke’s own train of thought hadn’t gone unnoticed. Well that was okay. He’d half expected his father to have him locked up alone somewhere - in a nice set of rooms probably, but still behind blast doors - so this was a nice surprise. Commander Dogma nodded and gestured to some of the stormtroopers to fall in behind him. 

“Come on then,” he said to Luke. “Follow me.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Aphra is conflicted, Ezra continues to be a model example of Inquisitorius brainwashing, Artoo is a font of knowledge, and the crew of the Ghost make a reappearance.

**0 ABY - Alliance Fleet Command, location unknown**

“Sithspit, Princess!” Han couldn’t stop the words from jumping out of his mouth the moment he saw her, his eyes drawn inexorably to the sling around her neck and the harsh bare metal of the prosthetic poking out the end of it. “What the hell happened?”

“Darth Vader happened,” Leia snarled. She was viciously angry; the kind he’d seen from her once or twice in the past but never quite as bad as this. Han could hardly blame her. He’d feel the same if someone chopped off a part of him. He couldn’t even imagine how painful and traumatic that had been. And to make things worse she didn’t even know about what Vader had said to Luke yet. Actually, about that…

“Uh, this may not be the best time, but Luke told me something on the _Falcon_ that I think you ought to know about…” he began.

“That Vader used to be Anakin Skywalker?” Leia said. Oh. So she did know. And, apparently, also actually believed it. “I am _very_ much aware. It’s the subject of our next mission.”

“You really think you’re up to going on a mission right now?” Han asked. Leia glared.

“This is not going to slow me down, flyboy,” she said, almost spitting the words in his face. “I am going to get to the bottom of this, and I am going to _use_ whatever advantage I can make out of it to destroy Vader once and for all!”

Han felt his body take a step backwards without consulting his brain at any point. Leia Organa was seven foot of rage in a five foot body. “Okay, okay,” he said. “We taking anyone else on this little revenge trip?”

A familiar roar split the air. [You think I’m letting you out of my sight again?] Chewie said, advancing on him and sweeping him up into a bone-breaking Wookie hug. Han tried not to suffocate on a mouthful of fur.

“Corellian _Hells_ , is it good to see you,” he said, burrowing his head into Chewie’s chest to avoid revealing the fact that he might have teared up just a little. “You can put me down you know, I’m still all in one piece.”

[You’re a complete _idiot_ ,] Chewie said. [Getting taken hostage by Vader!]

“Oh, and I suppose if you’d been there, you would have saved the day?”

Chewie roared in agreement, finally letting Han out of the hug.

“So as you can see,” Leia said, “Chewbacca volunteered to come with us. We’re waiting to hear back from an Alliance Cell code-named Spectre. Hopefully they’ll be able to let us know where to find more information about Anakin Skywalker.”

“After the missions we’ve been having lately, sounds like a holiday,” Han said. “What about Goldenrod, he coming along too?”

Leia shook her head. “Alliance Command needs him here. Good protocol droids are in short supply and some of the people reaching out to us now can be a bit touchy.”

Han wasn’t going to complain. Threepio must have some good points somewhere, buried deep down, but damn if all the annoying didn’t get in the way! “When do we leave?”

“As soon as possible.”

\----

**0 ABY - Bast Castle, Vjun, Nuiri Sector, Outer Rim**

Look, it wasn’t as though Aphra didn’t appreciate the honour she had been given in being permitted to come to this apparently secret sanctuary. But what she had told the Inquisitor had been true; in the past she had done her best to stay _away_ from the Empire. She was, after all, a smuggler and technically a criminal. That was simply what you needed to be to survive in the Outer Rim. The Empire tended to be less than understanding of that fact.

Lord Vader though… he was different. He might have been an Imperial but he didn’t _judge_ her. He simply expected her to do what he said and to give her very best for the cause. Aphra had never been one to take orders - she made _business arrangements_ \- but that was simply because she had never before found somebody worthy of her respect. Admittedly Vader hadn’t given her much choice in the matter at first, but there had been plenty of opportunities after their first mission for her to run far far away if that had been what she wanted. Except that seeing Vader in action had made her realise something about her life, about what she was doing with it. Aphra had never thought about it in these terms before that moment, but she had been looking for something, some kind of worthy cause, something that would make a _mark_ on the galaxy. That would outlast her.

In Lord Vader, she had found that cause.

But she didn’t have to justify herself to some disloyal, traitorous Inquisitor. She left him in the central lounge of the cushy quarters they’d been assigned and went to find out just what had gotten into Triple-Zero’s processor. Well, no, she knew exactly what the droid had been thinking; squishy organics, what fun! A better question was why he had chosen that moment to pounce on a stormtrooper. Aphra had no idea how trigger-happy the guards in a place like this might be, and the assassin was still useful. Plus he was the only one Beetee liked, so… That could easily have snowballed into an utter storm of _poodoo_.

“Ah, Mistress Aphra,” Triple-Zero said as she entered the room. “You take us to all the nicest places and then stop us from having any fun. I really must protest.”

“There’s a time and a place for fun,” Aphra said. “This; not it.”

Beetee chattered in his own special form of binary. “Quite right,” Triple-Zero said. “Quite right, you do owe us for trapping us with this irritating loyalty coding. And you took away the last organic I got my hands on as well! I mean, it is so greedy to keep all that blood inside their bodies…”

Aphra closed her eyes and prayed to the Force for strength.

“This is Lord Vader’s personal castle,” she said. “Everyone in it belongs to _him_ , do you understand? He is the only one who can give you permission to do _anything_ to them.”

“You might have said! We will just have to ask him when he returns.” Triple-Zero hesitated. “When do you think that might be?”

“I hope it’s soon,” Aphra said. For her sake as well.

\----

No-one had to tell Ezra when Luke Skywalker arrived on Vjun. He felt it the moment the ship breached atmosphere; two vast supernovas of strength in the Force, one warm, one deathly cold. The Force rippled, and the Dark Side within the castle moved and gathered itself up like a pet welcoming its master home. Dark tendrils of oily power reached out to Lord Vader, wrapping around the cold sun of his presence. He roused himself from his meditation - there had been little to do these past two days but meditate - and went to look out of the door to their rooms. The two troopers guarding it turned their heads to look at him, but didn’t move in any other way. Ezra had found out earlier that they had orders to make sure he and Aphra remained _exactly_ where they had been placed until Vader’s arrival. Aphra… hadn’t been pleased about that.

Ezra reached out with his senses. Luke still didn’t have the faintest idea about how to shield. Whatever had held up their journey to Vjun, he wasn’t happy about it. In fact, Luke’s emotions were all over the place, and Ezra could tell that all he wanted was to sit down somewhere and _rest_.

Luke began to come his way. Ezra dared to hope… and indeed his hope was rewarded. Luke appeared at the end of the corridor in step just behind the stormtrooper commander - recognisable by the arrow tattooed across his face - and followed by an honour guard of several other troopers. His face lit up when he saw Ezra, and he smiled.

“Inquisitor,” the Commander greeted him as they drew level with the door. “I’ve been instructed to bring this young man to you.”

“It’s good to see you,” Luke said.

“Likewise,” Ezra replied. “Come in, there’s plenty of room in here. More bedrooms than we know what to do with. You seem to have taken a bit of a roundabout route to get here.”

“Urg,” Luke said, looking disgusted. “I’m not sure if I want to talk about it. Is Aphra here too?”

Ezra nodded. “And the droids, all except your one. I don’t know where they took him.”

Luke sighed. “I’ll ask my father… but I don’t think they’ll have done anything bad to him.”

Ezra didn’t miss the faint expression of surprise on the Commander’s face. So he hadn’t known Luke was Lord Vader’s son? Perhaps he simply hadn’t gotten around to mentioning it yet. It wasn’t a fact that it would be safe to share over a comm channel, even a secure one.

“Can I get you anything sir?” the Commander said to Luke, saluting.

“No, thank you Commander, uh… Dogma,” Luke replied. “Perhaps food, in an hour or so?”

“There’s a direct line to the kitchens,” the trooper replied. “We don’t stock anything fancy, but we’ll do our best to accommodate any requests you might have.”

“If you’re a big fan of nutrient paste, you’ll love the food here,” Ezra said dryly. At least they had plenty of flavours - so often the stuff only came in picken.

“I’ve started developing a taste for military rations since joining the… since I started flying a starfighter,” Luke said. Probably wise of him not to mention the Alliance, given where they were. “Come on, show me these rooms then and… I guess we really should talk.”

Ezra led him inside to the central lounge. He started pointing out all the features of their quarters, but he could tell Luke wasn’t really paying attention. No, his thoughts were fixed somewhere else, somewhere a long way away. “Are you alright?” he asked his… friend. Yes, he hoped it wouldn’t be too bold to call them friends, even if it was only inside his head.

“No,” Luke said, sitting down heavily on one of the wide, black synth-leather couches. He looked suddenly exhausted, and Ezra could feel his unsteadiness, his wavering determination, his sorrow, almost as strongly as though they were his own. He sat down next to him, letting the silence stretch out. Luke would talk to him when he wanted to.

And then it was all pouring out. Ezra sat and listened and kept his thoughts to himself for the moment - that wasn’t what Luke was looking for here. He just seemed to want to get it off his chest. He explained everything that had happened since Vrogas Vas: the Alliance exchange; Lord Vader’s kriffing _ridiculous_ and frankly amazing plan; Leia Organa, last surviving member of Alderaan’s royal house and her confrontation with Vader; Luke facing down his father… he seemed to have a habit of bargaining for the lives of people he knew.

“I just… it’s as though I’d forgotten who he is!” Luke said, running his hands through his hair. “That sounds silly…”

“You had this image of your father in your head though, right?” Ezra said. “Based on what Kenobi told you. Changing that image… it won’t happen all at once.”

“And then what?” Luke asked him. “Maybe I have doubts about the Jedi now, but I still believe in what the Rebel Alliance is trying to do! You _know_ what the Empire does to people. You felt like I do once, before they made you believe there wasn’t any hope! Just because Darth Vader is my father doesn’t mean I’m going to change my mind about any of that!”

“But now you’re actually in a position to _really_ change things!” Ezra said, starting to get angry. “Don’t you realise the opportunity you’ve been given? Once you learn how to use the power of the Dark Side you can kill the Emperor and then _you’ll_ be in charge! You won’t have to run around playing at being a terrorist. However you want the galaxy to be, you can make it that way. That’s even more the case now the Senate isn’t around. Who will say any different?”

“I don’t want that kind of power,” Luke said, looking alarmed. “I wouldn’t know what to do with it! Besides, my father would be the one in charge, not me. What do I know about ruling anything? Besides, what about democracy? What about the right of people to decide for themselves how their lives should be?”

“If you really wanted to bring the Senate back, you could do that too,” Ezra said. “Although I don’t think it would be a good idea. I’ve seen the records of what the Old Republic was like at the end. They weren’t so much better than the Empire. I don’t know what the answer is; all I’ve ever been aiming for is the strength to protect the people I care about. The one thing I do know is that _you_ wouldn’t rule through fear. You wouldn’t need to have people killed to make them respect you.”

“Practically anyone would be better than the Emperor but that doesn’t mean it would be _right_ ,” Luke said. “Besides, there has to be a way to get rid of him that doesn’t involve me becoming a Sith.”

“I don’t understand why you don’t want to learn. The ways of the Sith may not exactly be _nice_ but at least we’re honest about it. The Dark Side is a tool; you’re the one who says how you use it.”

“What about other ways to use the Force?” Luke asked. “You mentioned other traditions before; surely I’ve got more to chose from than Jedi or Sith?”

“The Jedi got rid of most of that knowledge,” Ezra replied. “And besides, even if you could find a holocron or something, it’s not the same as a living teacher.”

Luke said nothing. Ezra could feel that he didn’t agree, but also he couldn’t think of any other arguments to make about it. It was a start though. And Lord Vader would obviously be able to put it in even more convincing terms.

“So how about something to eat then?” he suggested. “We can go find Aphra in whichever room she’s slunk off to and make a proper meal of it.”

“Okay,” Luke said, offering him a wan smile. “That sounds nice.”

\----

The turbolift hissed closed behind him, and Vader stepped out into the comforting silence and darkness of his private rooms. Here at the top of the spire the Force signatures of the 501st were only a gentle hum in the distance, accompanied by those of Aphra and the Twelfth Brother, which were becoming ever more familiar to him. His son, on the other hand, was a bright, warm blaze. It was comforting to have him here, so close, and his presence was never grating in the way that others could be. It was a relief to have Luke somewhere he could guarantee his safety.

Luke was angry with him right now, but that would pass. Vader had much to teach him, and then he would understand. His son would become strong, powerful, and together they would destroy Sidious. Nothing could stop that - he had utter confidence.

Through their still-developing familial bond Vader could tell that Luke had found the Twelfth Brother. That was good. It was clear that Luke made friends easily. He should have some on the side of the Empire, tying his loyalties here, otherwise it would be impossible to rid him of the influence of the Rebel Alliance. The Inquisitor would also prove useful as a sparring partner, for it was clear that whatever teaching Kenobi might have given the boy had been exceedingly basic. Lightsaber skills alone would be insufficient to defeat the Emperor, but to be without them would surely lead to swift defeat. Sidious did not often use a lightsaber, preferring his Force lightning as Vader knew from personal experience, but that did not mean he was not skilful in that form of combat as well.

A squeal of binary interrupted his thoughts. [You took long enough getting here, Anakin!] Artoo said, wheeling towards him from where he had previously been charging against the wall. [What’s going on?]

“I no longer go by that name,” Vader told his old friend. “And I have many questions for you also.”

[But Anakin is your designation. It is who you are,] Artoo protested. [Why would you change it?]

“Because I changed,” Vader explained patiently. “My purpose, my function…” And yet every day that had passed since finally finding his son only seemed to remind of him of the man he had been decades ago. He did not wish to think of that time. He particularly did not want to think of the final days of the Clone Wars and the pain of coming so near to what he wanted before losing it all. “I am Darth Vader now.”

[Ah, kriff.] Artoo said, the squeal of binary communicating both surprise and resignation. [I guess I hoped my processors were karked or something. If I’d known it was _you_ we were fighting… I thought you were dead. Obi-Wan never said any different. But then he was a slippery bastard when he wanted to be.]

“You left Mustafar with Kenobi.” He had not previously considered how Artoo had escaped the moon, but given that he had apparently spent the intervening years with his old Master it was obvious. “You know what happened… to Padmé. How did she die?” He did not want to ask the question. He feared what the answer might be. But he had to know.

[We went to Polis Massa and she gave birth there,] Artoo said. [But afterwards something went wrong. The medical droids couldn’t help, didn’t even know _what_ was wrong, slagged scrap-heap glitch-bots that they were! They couldn’t save her!]

Vader closed his eyes. His chest - always tight - felt as though a vice had wrapped around it, even though the respirator steadily continued its work forcing air in and out of his lungs. It was as his visions had foreseen. If he had been there… if the outcome of the duel had been different... could his powers have saved her? Or had time run out far before he had a chance to learn the secrets Sidious had promised him?

[I’m sorry.]

“You cared for her also,” Vader said. “Of all beings in the galaxy, you have a right to share my grief.” The vocoder did not allow for expression of his sorrow, but Artoo would understand. His old friend trundled forwards, leaning his stocky body against his legs. Vader rested his hand on Artoo’s head, permitting himself to take comfort from the droid’s low burble of meaningless binary.

[Kenobi should have karking told us you were alive,] Artoo said after a while. [We had a right to know; we were taking one of the twins!]

For a moment that seemed to hang suspended in time, Vader thought he had misheard. That somehow, despite speaking it since he was three years of age, he had forgotten the meaning of that word in binary. He gathered his thoughts enough to speak.

“Twins?”

[Of course,] Artoo replied, then, [Oh. You didn’t know about that either.]

“Explain,” Vader growled. How could this be possible? As though he did not have enough reason to hate Kenobi… and now this? He should not have killed the old man so quickly. It should have been slow. Drawn out.

[They were split up, for safety!] Artoo said. [Kenobi took Luke, and Bail Organa said he would take Leia!]

With dawning horror, Vader realised he had made a terrible mistake.

\----

**0 ABY - Gannaria system, Trilon sector, edge of the Unknown Regions**

They had come to Gannaria because of spice. Sabine didn’t much care about the political situation, she left that to Hera, but this whole sector of space was infamous for its production of the drug, which meant a lot of powerful sentients had vested interests out here. Not the Empire though. They hadn’t quite made it out to this part of the galaxy. That still left half a hundred smuggling clans, pirates, Hutt associates, and all of the other disreputable individuals she had ever had the pleasure of meeting. They had credits, and they had no love for the Empire. It was a fact of the Rebel Alliance that so much of their business had to be done with people who were only better than the Imperials because they couldn’t operate on a galaxy-wide scale.

This wasn’t the _Ghost’s_ first trip out to this sector, not by a long shot. Hera had led the first ever mission out here a couple of years back, and people knew who they were, they knew their faces. There was a measure of trust, of reputation, that meant it only made sense for the four of them to keep coming back here. Sabine didn’t mind it too much. Some of the mercenaries she had met reminded her of old friends. She could have been one of them, if her life had turned out differently.

Currently they were docked in neutral space - Prithya Station, a ramshackle conglomeration of dozens of ancient mothballed starships bolted together into a vast space station. Looking at it from outside it was hard to believe the thing was even sealed against vacuum, but it was actually surprisingly robust and functional. The multiple power-plants had been coaxed to link into a proper electrical grid, there were lights, running water, working freshers, dormitories, hydroponics, a medbay… all in all, a self-sufficient home amongst the stars. The details of whoever had built the place were lost to history, but its current matriarch was a terrifying Twi’lek named Lady Je’tarr who had taken an instant liking to Hera at their first meeting. Lady Je’tarr would never show favouritism to any one faction, but it wasn’t hard to detect subtle hints of her favour here and there, which was why Prithya Station had become the _Ghost’s_ unofficial base while operating in this sector.

Hera was here to talk business with a pirate they had worked with several times before - a Weequay named Hondo Ohnaka. Apparently for the past few years he had been in partnership with Lando Calrissian before Calrissian had made the decision to go straight, something which Hondo now wouldn’t shut up about. Sabine hadn’t heard him talk about much else for the whole time they’d been in the cantina. Now he was out here running spice corewards through the Freestanding Subsectors.

“Tell us more of the rumours you called us about,” Hera said, trying to guide the Weequay back on topic. “This new project.”

“Ah yes, _those_ rumours.” Hondo smiled. “But of course you understand that information is not free, not even to my good friends Hera and Sabine.” Sabine rolled her eyes, concealed behind her helmet.

“What price did you have in mind?” Hera asked sweetly. Sabine recognised that tone; Hera would like nothing better than to strangle the old pirate right now.

“Just a little help with a new job of mine,” Hondo said. “Very easy, no trouble.”

“How can we be sure this information you have is even of any value to us?” Hera asked.

Hondo pretended to be greatly offended. “After all we’ve been through together you can’t even offer the honourable Hondo Ohnaka a little trust?”

“I’m not really sure what part of our previous interactions has given you the idea that we trust you Hondo,” Hera said. “Give me a little something to go on. And tell me exactly what this ‘little job’ involves.”

“Very well Captain Syndulla, but only because I like you.” Hondo leaned back in his chair, grinning. “The Empire is building something new, they say. Something big.”

“Not another superweapon,” Sabine said, exasperated. She would have thought the Imps would have learned _something_ from the destruction of their shiny toy.

“Eh, something a little smarter,” Hondo said, shrugging. “The entirety of Fondor Shipyards has been working on it the last eighteen months standard, and there’s another three to go. But what is it, and what can it do?” He spread his hands dramatically. “That, I will only tell you _after_ you do this job.”

“Which is?” Hera asked. She looked as tired of the theatrics as Sabine felt.

“The Nautolan Sun Squad; perhaps you have heard of them?”

Hera nodded. The Sun Squad were a criminal gang well known in this sector, and they ran spice just like everybody else. Their reputation wasn’t particularly bad or particularly good given the circles they ran in - as far as Sabine was concerned they were pretty much average in all respects.

“We might have had… a slight disagreement, about my last shipment.” Hondo smiled. It wasn’t hard to guess what kind of disagreement. The Weequay’s tendency to betrayal would have been more concerning if he was any good at it. “So now they are holding my freighter hostage, on this very station! I need you, my fine friends, to free her from this _despicable_ bondage.”

“Fine,” Hera said. “Yes. So long as you keep our involvement in this mess _private_. I’m not in the business of making enemies; we’ve got enough already.”

“Not a whisper of your names,” Hondo said, not hiding how pleased he was. “Disguises, code names, whatever you want. And then I will tell you everything I know.”

\----

When they got back to the _Ghost_ , Zeb was waiting for them with Chopper. “Transmission came through from the Alliance,” he said. He didn’t look very happy about it. “It’s from Commander Leia Organa - with authorisation from High Command. Apparently she wants to talk to us about Fulcrum.” Now Sabine understood his expression.

Thinking about Fulcrum meant thinking about Kanan, and Ezra, and the Inquisitors. So much had been taken from them… They had been so full of hope back then and the Empire had crushed it. Ezra had turned into something horrible, into a monster, and he was still out there somewhere. In the quiet of the night when she was trying to get to sleep, Sabine often thought about that. She had nightmares about the day on Lothal when they had lost him. She had nightmares where Kanan had been taken too, where he and Ezra stalked her and Hera and Zeb through twisting tunnels with red blades, unstoppable, unkillable, nothing left of the people she had known on their faces. Or she dreamt of Kanan’s body, turning its dead eyes to her and accusing her of being too slow, of not being able to protect him, to save him.

And Fulcrum… Fulcrum was a part of that time. She was a Jedi, she used the Force. And she had been hunted too.

“We don’t have a choice about it,” Hera said, looking at them both. “Not a request like that. We’ll have to meet her - but not until after we’re finished with this job for Hondo.”

Sabine nodded. “ _What_ are we going to tell her though?” she asked. “The truth? All of it?”

Zeb grunted. “Need to comm Rex and the others if we are,” he said. “Give them a head’s-up.” Chopper whistled agreement.

“I think we need to know more about why someone’s asking these kind of questions first,” Hera said. “But maybe Leia Organa has a right to know. Fulcrum worked with her father, after all. Zeb, send a reply back. Say we’ll be able to meet her in this system after we finish our mission. That will give us time to make a decision, and check in with Rex as well.”

Zeb nodded. Sabine left him to it and went back to her room. She had some bombs to work on; she wanted to be prepared for the job ahead of them. And she needed to work out how she felt about all of this. Something was telling her this was going to involve more than just a simple chat.

\----

**0 ABY - Bast Castle, Vjun, Nuiri Sector, Outer Rim**

Vader shut down his connection to Luke before any of his emotions could leach through. Artoo beeped in worry, but he was not listening. All that occupied his mind was the memory of Leia Organa sprawled on the deck of the Alderaanian cruiser, clutching at the stump of her wrist. The memory of her interrogation. The memory of her anger, her hate; rage worthy of any Sith.

How could he not have seen it? Again? How could the Force have allowed him to do that to his own daughter? Surely the moment he raised a hand against her _something_ should have stopped him, some realisation, some knowledge… She was so like him! She looked so like Padmé! Even her name, which in Alderaani meant ‘flower of the sun’, had its own meaning in his first tongue, in the language of slaves. Leia, the krayt dragon. Padmé had known that. It had been what he wanted to call their child if it was a girl.

Willfully blind. Arrogant fool. She had been right before his eyes for _years_ , following in her mother’s footsteps. Had the thought never even crossed his mind..? Perhaps it had. But he had been so sure his child was dead. His _Master_ had told him so. And he had never sensed within her any connection to the Force.

There were ways to hide such a thing. It was beyond belief that she could not be strong in the Force, as Luke was. Luke… he would have to tell him. His son had a right to know. And then Luke would hate him, forever and irreparably, for how could he not? It would only be just. Perhaps it would be that which turned him to the Dark Side. If so, then Vader’s own life was forfeit… and that too was just. At least if that came to pass Luke would still be safe. He would have proved his usefulness and worth to Sidious - he would become the new Apprentice, to kill the Master in due course. Luke would be a better Sith than Vader, more ambitious, more capable. _He_ would never harm his family.

And what of Leia? What of his _daughter_? Someone had trained her how to conceal her abilities, and surely it was only that which had prevented her from turning before. She was a natural Sith; passionate, determined, and furious. If he had not been oblivious to the truth he could have approached her _years_ ago, when they met for the first time after her first session in the Senate. He could have guided her, shown her her full potential. So many possibilities... Instead he had made himself her mortal enemy. She would never forgive him, and he was not worthy of her forgiveness.

Luke would be the one to teach her. After Vader’s death - that was inevitable now.

Vader managed to shake himself free of his thoughts. The room around him was… shattered. Obsidian shards rained down from fracture-lines in the walls and ceiling. The floor had split and crumbled around him, cratering downwards. What sparse furniture there had once been now lay in pieces where they had been flung. Only Artoo remained unharmed, wailing in binary.

[I can’t believe you didn’t karking _know_! I’m sorry this is how you found out!]

“I… apologise,” Vader said. The words passed out of him in a whisper, made all the more alien and distant by his vocodor. There was an endless black void inside of him that the Dark Side - eager as it was to try - could not fill. “I did not mean to alarm you.”

[It’s not me I’m kriffing worried about, it’s _you_.] Artoo replied. [I downloaded the prisoner files when I was on the Death Star so I know… but you didn’t know it was _her_ , you didn’t know she was your daughter!]

Vader tried to hide his reaction - did not, perhaps, succeed. Artoo made soothing sounds, the babble of white noise. But he knew _exactly_ what Vader had done. His continuing sympathy could surely only be blamed on some remaining spark of loyalty programming - even if he had done his best to scrub every last trace of that from his old friend’s processor.

“Come with me,” Vader said, knowing what he had to do. “I must speak to my son.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As we all know from RotS, a sad Skywalker does not make good decisions...


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Luke settles into Bast Castle, Leia runs into a little trouble, and Vader considers the future.

**0 ABY - Bast Castle, Vjun, Nuiri Sector, Outer Rim**

It was only after Luke woke up feeling about a hundred times better than he had the day before that he realised that prior to this he hadn’t actually slept since Vrogas Vas - and that had been the night _before_ meeting Aphra! No wonder he had felt like he couldn’t think straight. Properly rested, everything looked much brighter, or at least, more manageable. He got up, taking the time to properly stretch before checking the chrono. That bed had been very big and _very_ comfortable, which would have been great if only his spine hadn’t gotten used to rather more sparse accommodations. In fact he’d probably never had a mattress as soft as that one. 

He’d been asleep for twelve hours. Somehow that didn’t surprise him. 

After talking to Ezra yesterday and filling his stomach with some surprisingly tasty nutrient paste, he had gone straight into the spare bedroom Ezra had pointed out to him and crawled under the covers, only just taking the time to strip out of his rather ripe clothes. Apparently someone had come in the night and taken them away. That should probably bother him more than it did. Luke just hoped that whoever it was - perhaps only a cleaning droid? - had arranged for them to be laundered rather than taking them outside and burning them as a clear biohazard. But it did rather leave him with the question of what he was supposed to wear now. 

Luke checked a door, which turned out to lead to a walk-in closet, but it was empty. The next door led to the fresher - which, he realised, he was desperately needing. And a shower wouldn’t go amiss either. He sniffed his armpit and made a face. That was… actually disgusting. 

The shower was actual _water_ as well, not sonics. Even after he had joined the Alliance their resources had never been good enough for everyone to have as much heated water as they wanted. Luke spent as long enjoying it as he could before he started to feel irrationally guilty and then shut it off, shivering as the cool air hit him. And then there were the towels! Big enough to wear as a cloak, fluffier than a bantha calf, and _warm_. He wrapped himself up in one and decided this would just have to do for now. If anyone wanted to see him they would either have to bring clothes or resign themselves to speaking to towel-Luke. 

Ezra was waiting for him in the common area. He laughed when he saw what Luke was wearing; a proper, spluttering, belly-deep laugh that went on for a while. Luke bore this with dignity. The towel was very comfortable and entirely proper. 

“It’s a good thing someone came by earlier with clothes for you,” Ezra said, once he was done laughing. “Apparently you have your own rooms somewhere else that you were meant to go to once you were finished here.”

“Oh,” Luke said, approaching with a certain amount of wariness. Ezra held out the neat pile for him to take, which Luke managed without letting go of the bit of towel that was draped over his uh… over certain bits of him. “Did my father send any messages while I was asleep? Is there something I’m meant to be doing this morning?”

Ezra shook his head. “No, nothing. It’s getting boring. Aphra doesn’t want to talk to me; she spends all her time in her room doing ‘maintenance’ on the droids.” He sighed. It was true that she hadn’t been interested in having dinner with them last night either. “And I think she’s sulking because she’s on lockdown just like me. Which I guess I can understand - she’s loyal, so Vader ought to trust her to go wandering about. I tried to explain that this is a Sith place, you can’t just let anyone go anywhere when they don’t know what they’re doing, but she doesn’t get it.”

“Uh, let me put these on, and then you can tell me what you mean, because I don’t get it either,” Luke said. 

He retreated back into the bedroom and laid the clothes out on the bed to get a better look at them. There was a pair of tight black trousers, a pair of very new, very shiny boots (also black), a soft black shirt and a light black jacket to go over it. Luke was sensing a theme here. He dressed reluctantly and went to the fresher to look at himself in the mirror. He had to admit, black did seem to suit him. 

“Okay,” he said, once he had rejoined Ezra in the common area. The couches here were almost as comfortable as the beds. “Do you know something about this place?”

“Only rumours,” Ezra replied. “It’s said that Lord Vader has a secret Sith retreat, a place strong in the Dark Side, where he can go to meditate on the nature of the Force, train and increase his power - and clearly Bast Castle is just that. I’ve seen holocrons that spoke about these kinds of places. They tend to be full of Dark Side artefacts, traps for the unwary, ways to keep out those who don’t belong. The stormtroopers have clearly been here long enough to know what is safe and what isn’t, but that’s not the sort of thing you’d want to find out by trial and error.”

“That sounds like it makes sense,” Luke said. “So why didn’t Aphra…”

“Because I don’t believe a word out his mouth.” It was Aphra herself, standing in the doorway of the room Ezra had pointed out earlier. Behind her Luke could just see her two droids, but they seemed to be powered down, at least for the moment. Aphra strode into the room and sat down heavily on the sofa opposite Ezra’s, glaring at him. “Nice to see you up and about, Lord Vader Junior.”

“Don’t call me that,” Luke said, annoyed.

“Just Junior then. The whole thing _is_ a bit long to say all the time, isn’t it.” She smirked. 

“How about my _name_? Which you _know_.” Luke had been feeling charitable and generally good-tempered this morning, but seeing Aphra again he was made aware of just how much he _hadn’t_ forgiven her for lying to him, which was warring with the fact that he had been starting to really like her. 

Whatever retort Aphra might have made to that was cut off when the door suddenly opened and Vader swept into the room, Artoo close on his heels. Luke sat up sharply, startled to realise that once again he hadn’t been feeling anything over their bond. Clearly he still wasn’t used to it enough to notice its absence. Kriff it, it couldn’t mean anything good that his father had shut it off again! Warily he reached out to the Force. The Dark Side felt almost solid around the whole room, a sickly tar pit of sorrow and shame. For a moment Luke felt as though he couldn’t even breath. 

“Lord Vader!” Aphra exclaimed, jumping to her feet and grinning. Ezra stood as well, far more reluctantly. 

“My Lord,” he said. 

“Luke,” Vader said, ignoring the other two, “I have discovered something vital.” 

“Um, okay,” Luke replied, when his father failed to elaborate. It had only been one night, what could have come up in such a short time?

Vader’s helmet dipped down. His arm swept aside his cloak to retrieve something from his belt. He held it out towards Luke, who realised immediately that it was his lightsaber. “First, you must take this back.”

Luke took it from him hesitantly. He wasn’t feeling good about this. It didn’t make any sense that his father would give him a weapon - even if Luke had no hope of defeating Vader himself, he might still use it against the guards and try to escape after his father left him alone. 

“Artoo was present when you were born,” Vader said. Luke felt his mouth suddenly go dry. Artoo himself beeped quietly - it sounded apologetic.

“So… he knows what happened after that?” he guessed. “About how my mother… died?”

“More than that,” his father replied. It was impossible to tell his thoughts or even how he was feeling without the Force connection. The vocoder gave no clues. “You have a sister.”

“I… what?” Another revelation, another unexpected truth only confirmed by the Force - he didn’t need to use the Dark Side that enveloped them to feel it thrill with some sort of poisonous, unhappy satisfaction. “You mean I was a _twin_?”

“Indeed.”

“Then… do you know what happened to her? Is she still alive, is she out there somewhere?” Excitement rushed through him. A feeling that he’d had for a long time suddenly made sense to him. For as long as he could remember it had seemed that there was something missing from his life. A thing that should be there but wasn’t. He’d had dreams when he was young of places he had never seen in his life; water, white mountains, elegant cities - only now did he think of them again after all these years. Had those really been visions of whatever world his sister might be on?

His father hesitated. It lasted long enough for the excitement to ebb. Vader didn’t want to tell him. Surely that meant it was going to be bad news. 

“Leia Organa is your sister,” Vader finally said. 

“ _Leia_?” Yet it felt… it felt right. As though the world was slotting quietly into place. Returning to the shape it was always meant to be. Meeting her for the first time Luke had felt an instant connection, but he’d never been able to put it into words. He’d only known he felt drawn to her. Now that too made perfect sense. 

“You are not angry,” his father remarked. 

“No, of course not,” Luke said, frowning. “Why in the world would I be angry that Leia’s my sister?”

“You are not angry with me.”

Oh. Now Luke understood his meaning. “I was _already_ angry with you about the things you’ve done!” he said. “Not just to Leia but to people all across the galaxy - this doesn’t change anything. Well I mean… unless you plan on _doing_ something to her.”

“No!” Vader said sharply. “She will come to no further harm by my hand.”

“Good!” A thought struck him. “And you aren’t going to try turning her to the Dark Side as well?”

“She would never accept me as her teacher. Nor as her father.”

Luke couldn’t deny that. Leia - his _sister_ \- had hated Vader enough because of what had happened on the Death Star, and then he had attacked her, cut off her hand… No, his father was right. Learning the truth… it would be devastating. He would never want her to be hurt more, but then equally, didn’t she have right to know? Besides, she had already had a family, her adopted one. And the Empire had murdered them along with her whole planet. 

But what about Luke himself? How would she feel to learn that she had a brother?

Not that he would have any chance to tell her anytime soon. Who knew how long his father would want to keep him here in Bast Castle - perhaps he would never let him leave unless he became a Sith, which would be never. There was no chance of getting a message out to anyone, _especially_ not the Rebel Alliance. 

Vader hadn’t said anything while Luke had been thinking. He’d merely been staring at him, perhaps waiting for him to do something, or ask another question. But Luke didn’t know what to say or where to go from here. Learning something like this… it should change everything. But how could it when he was effectively a prisoner in his father’s home? Vader lowered his head slightly, looking away, and then turned with his cape swirling around him and strode towards the door.

“Wait!” Luke said quickly, thinking that even if he didn’t have questions himself, he could at least ask something on behalf of Ezra and Doctor Aphra. Even if, under the circumstances, it would be a bit awkward. His father paused. “Um. Is it okay if… if we leave these rooms now? Even if we have to have guards with us it would be good to see the rest of the castle.”

“That is acceptable,” Vader said, and then left. The heavy, almost suffocating, presence of the Dark Side slowly followed him until only the background whisper of it remained - something Luke was already starting to get used to.

“That was… a little strange,” Aphra said, looking concerned. Next to her Ezra shivered. 

“I know what you mean,” he said quietly. 

Artoo squawked; Luke’s binary was still a little rusty but it sounded like, [I’m just glad he didn’t do anything kriffing foolish!] 

“I guess he’s feeling guilty,” he said. “About hurting Leia. Which _he should_ ,” he added quickly. “The Empire shouldn’t torture people, and even if I understand why he was so angry he shouldn’t have tried to kill her over a _ship_. But…” Luke looked down at the lightsaber he was still holding. Something stirred uneasily in his gut. “He gave me this and he expected me to be angry.”

“He was hoping you would draw on the Dark Side,” Ezra said, with a confidence to his voice that didn’t seem to be borne out in the way he felt in the Force. “Lord Vader wouldn’t have simply stood there and let you attack him, he just… wanted to see what you would do .”

“Enough of this,” Aphra said to the both of them. “We’ve been given permission so let’s get out of these kriffing rooms. I need to stretch my legs - my life usually involves a lot more running than this, it’s unnatural.”

Luke nodded. Going for a walk always helped him to think at home. Hopefully it would be the same here, even if he wasn’t alone. 

“Perhaps we can find the training salle,” Ezra suggested. “There has to be one. Even if you’re being insistent about not using the Dark Side, no-one’s going to complain if you just work on your sabre technique, Luke.”

That sounded even better. “Let’s ask one of the stormtroopers,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll be able to take us there.”

\----

**0 ABY - Gannaria system, Trilon sector, edge of the Unknown Regions**

Gannaria system. Prithya Station. Hardly auspicious names, a meeting-point nearly out in the wilds of the Unknown Regions, but Leia was very used to such places. She had to be, working for the Rebel Alliance. Up until very recently most of their support and supplies had come from systems like this one. She massaged the skin where her arm connected with her temporary prosthetic whilst waiting for them to come out of hyperspace. There hadn’t been time to wait until the permanent bionic was finished before she left - or rather she hadn’t been willing to wait. She wanted answers, _now_. She wanted to know just who Anakin Skywalker was. 

“Feeling okay?” Han asked her from the pilot’s seat, turning to look back at her. 

“Just fine,” Leia replied. 

“Just looks like that thing’s hurting you…”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She wasn’t going to admit that he was right - it did ache. But she wasn’t about to let it slow her down, and it was none of his business. She flexed the bare mechanical fingers, but it didn’t help. Han turned back to the viewport. Half a minute later the blue vortex of hyperspace gave way to the distant stars - and one very unusual space station ahead of them. “And I thought _this_ ship was junk,” she said under her breath.

“I haven’t been here in a long time,” Han said, beginning their approach. “We’d better hope to hell they don’t recognise me or we’ll have a pack of bounty hunters breathing down our necks.”

Leia said nothing. Given how often he reminded her of it she was well aware of the bounty Jabba the Hutt had put on Han’s head. She was also aware that between the credits he’d been given by Luke and those the Alliance had given him he should have had more than enough to pay off the debt he owed - if only his ship didn’t have a continual need for more spare parts. As far as she was concerned, this was only another reason to stay with the Rebellion; it would be safer. 

Chewbacca roared something in Shyriiwook. Han shrugged. “We’ll just have to hope for the best,” he said. “They’ll have sold off the rights to my favourite docking point by now, but I’m sure we can find somewhere nice and out of the way.”

They were hailed as they approached. Leia let Han do the talking, studying the strange layout of the station instead. Frankly nothing about it looked safe. She was surprised the whole thing hadn’t vented out into space yet - or perhaps it had in the past, and no-one actually cared. Finally Han and whoever was in charge of docking arrangements seemed to come to some sort of agreement, and they ended up clamped on to the bottom of an ancient cruiser that looked old enough to have seen the Stark Hyperspace War. 

“So where are we meeting these friends of yours?” Han asked. 

“At a cantina called the Drunken Wookie,” Leia said with faint disgust. “Then they will escort us to their own ship, the _Ghost_.”

“Guess they want to check us out first, make sure we are who we say we are.”

“Let’s not keep them waiting.” 

The three of them climbed up the airlock ladder to emerge in a shadowed corridor smelling faintly of stale air and something sharp and sour than Leia couldn’t identify. She tried not to breathe too deeply. “Which way?” she asked Han.

“Why’re you asking me?” he replied.

“You said you’ve been here before! Don’t you know your way around this place?”

“I’ve never been to _this_ part of the station specifically,” Han said. “Let’s just wander around until we find one of the public terminals and then we can get directions.”

Leia glared, but she couldn't’ think of any better plan. “Fine. Pick a corridor.”

The path Han chose might as well have been random for all she knew. It led them through more dark and dusty corridors, little maintained as far as she could tell. They passed the rare sentient or occasionally a droid. None of them looked particularly friendly, but they weren’t stopped at any point, so Leia was beginning to hope that things were going well although there was still no sign of a functional terminal anywhere. Both she and Han kept their hands near their blasters, Chewie with his bowcaster at the ready. 

Then she felt something. It was no more than a tingle along her spine, her shoulders, the back of her neck. She just reacted to it, without thinking. Whirling round, her blaster left its holster and spat a red bolt through the darkness. It lit the walls brilliantly for a moment, leaving her blinking as the glow seared itself into her retina. A shadow in the intersection they had just passed slumped forwards, revealing itself as a humanoid of some kind. It’s own blaster carbine clattered onto the floor as it slipped from its dead hands. 

Chewbacca roared. 

“What in all the hells Princess!” Han yelped, spinning around with his own blaster out. His eyes widened at the sight of the dead figure. Leia strode over to examine it. She turned the corpse over with her foot.

“Friend of yours?” she asked. 

“I don’t recognise them,” Han replied, coming over to join her and holstering his pistol. “How’d you know we were being followed?”

“I… don’t know.” Leia shook her head. Sometimes she did get these sorts of feelings, some kind of warning of danger in her future, but never so strong, so immediate. “Instinct?” She reached down and pulled the helmet off the figure’s head. It detached with the hiss of a broken seal. An atmosphere suit? The facial features didn’t give her much to go on, and she didn’t recognise the armour or clothing. The being was about the same height as her, she judged. She passed the helmet over to Han, who took it closer to a light to study it. Chewie said something to him

“Yeah, it’s Ubese,” Han said, nodding. “Don’t see many of those about. A lot of them are bounty hunters - the lifestyle seems to suit them.”

Leia bent to search the being’s pockets, hoping she might find something useful. She came across a folded flimsi and opened it to find her own face looking back at her. She swore, making Han and Chewie both look at her in surprise. “The Empire have upped the bounty on me again,” she said, holding the flimsi up for them to see. Han whistled. 

“That’s a pretty price, Princess.”

“Thinking of claiming it yourself?” Leia asked him. 

“Somehow I think they don’t pay out to rebel scum,” Han replied with a grin. 

“Admitting that’s what you are, now?” 

“Oh no,” Han said, raising a warning finger. “Don’t think you can trap me into making some kinda commitment. Chewie and I are only sticking this out ‘cos you got us curious. Chewie fought in the Clone Wars, after all, didn’t’cha big guy.”

Chewbacca growled - it was probably agreement. Leia hadn’t known that little fact and found herself suspicious that it hadn’t been mentioned before now. She folded her arms and gave the Wookie her best glare. “That’s very interesting,” she said. “I don’t suppose you have any pertinent information you’d like to share?”

Chewie’s reply was a drawn out series of howls. Han listened intently. “He says he was part of the Kashyyyk Defence Force when the Separatists invaded. They worked briefly with a Jedi Master called Yoda, but that was a much contact as he ever had with the Order.”

It was a tenuous connection to the Jedi, one that thousands of beings across the galaxy must have shared. She understood why Chewbacca hadn’t thought it worth mentioning until now. “Thank you,” she said. “I suppose we’ll have to get back to our more pressing problem.”

“I’ve gotta say it’s nice not to be the one with a target on his back for once,” Han said. “You’re going to need a disguise otherwise this won’t be the only bounty hunter coming sniffing your way.”

“This happened when they put the first bounty out, directly after Yavin,” Leia said, then added at Han’s questioning look, “You wouldn’t have known about it. They never got close with the rest of the Alliance in the way. It settled down quickly enough. I’m sure this will do the same. But… in the meantime…” She eyed the dead Ubese again. Yes, the size was just about right… 

\----

**0 ABY - Bast Castle, Vjun, Nuiri Sector, Outer Rim**

Luke… Luke had not acted in the way he had expected. Vader had prepared himself for the black tide of his son’s hate - or tried to. How he truly would have reacted to it he could not know. He had left himself in the hands of Luke’s anger and his judgment and he had been spared. If Luke had chosen otherwise, if he had taken the weapon he had been given and struck with it, Vader would not have resisted him. Yet it had not happened. He still lived. Mercy - he of all beings did not deserve it after betraying his family, the only thing that truly _mattered_. 

Mercy was a dangerous thing. In the future that Vader hoped to bring about, his son would wield the power of life and death over entire planets and star-systems, and there would be many who would take advantage of Luke’s good nature. They would see it as a sign of weakness, and they would rise up, strike against the peace and order their new Emperor brought them. Would it take seeing _that_ to teach his son to harden his heart against those who did not deserve to be spared? Would he survive the experience? Who would protect him, if not his father?

Perhaps Luke was aware of that, on some level. Perhaps that was the reason he had stayed his hand - it could not be love. Vader held no illusions; even before this he had not expected _love_ from his son, not when he was everything the boy feared. He had hoped for… he was not sure. Acceptance. The slow realisation that Kenobi had lied to him many times over and thus, perhaps, he had misunderstood the aims of the Empire. Affection, maybe, as time went on. Thus far what he had felt from Luke was a confusing mixture of emotions, nigh impossible to pick apart. 

Well, if his son still had a use for him, then so be it. He was not fit to be a father but he could still be a teacher, a protector. If Luke did not desire the pleasure of killing his enemies himself, then Vader would always be by his side to see the job done. 

He realised that, sunk deep in thought, he had made his way back to his own chambers. Vader stood amidst the ruin he had made of them, assessing the damage. There was little that could be done to save the stone cladding the deeper structure of the tower and it would have to be replaced, but at least he had not caused these rooms to become unstable. He would pass dealing with the task on to Commander Dogma - it was he who managed most of the day to day matters of Bast Castle. A job more fit for a steward than for a loyal soldier, Vader knew, yet despite his suggestions to the contrary Dogma had refused to give the tasks up to any civilian who would be - to the Commander’s mind - less competent.

At least his meditation chamber had survived unharmed. He badly needed the purity of a mind focused on the Force, on a singular emotion - albeit in all its different forms, as was the way of the Sith. Even in the midst of hate, or of anger, or of pain, there came a kind of calm, of clarity. When your will became one with the Dark Side there was no space for doubt, guilt or self-pity. Vader unclasped his cloak and hung it up at the entrance to the airlock. The rooms within maintained hyperbaric oxygen concentrations, allowing him to strip himself of as much of his suit as was possible. It was easier to touch the Force like that, with fewer distractions. His belt followed, and as he put it aside his hands brushed something within one of the pockets which he had entirely forgotten about. 

The Sith holocron. 

Under previous circumstances it would have been the rightful property of his Master, and he would not have been allowed to keep it for himself much less attempt to open it. As Sidious had often told him - in an unconscious echo of Kenobi - he could not think himself ready for complex lessons until he had mastered the basics. Which would usually be followed by a recounting of his many failures as a Sith. But he was beginning to move against his Master - the old rules no longer applied. 

It would also be something to distract his mind from his present situation. Briefly, Vader reached out his senses towards Luke, ascertaining that he had found the training salle accompanied by the Inquisitor. That was satisfactory; anything dangerous was coded to him personally, leaving only the large open space for his son to practise his bladework. There would be little risk in directing all his focus elsewhere for a while. 

Vader passed through the airlock, and let the mechanised apparatus dip down to unfasten his helmet. The eternal red tint of its lenses left his vision, leaving him blinking as he adjusted. The sharp tang of cleaning chemicals filled his nostrils - the droids had been as meticulous as ever. The action of his respirator drew the fresh, sweet air into his scarred lungs as he lifted the heavy weight of the durasteel armour over his head and stripped the body glove from him. The synthskin covering most of his body stung as it was exposed, a sensation still preferable to the constant and unrelenting itch of the body-glove’s fabric. 

Of course the suit’s collar could not be removed, anymore than the mechanics of the respirator embedded in his chest, but such was the price he paid for Kenobi’s handiwork. 

He settled into a posture of meditation, holding the holocron out in front of him. Most Sith Holocrons were pyramidal, in contrast to the Jedi cubes. However this one _was_ cuboid, despite the clear touch of the Dark Side around it, and the colour of the crystal matrix within. Curious. He reached out to it through the Force, merely testing at this point. He was wary of any potential traps. Poisons would be irrelevant to him, unable to be absorbed by the metal of his prosthetics, but that was far from the only kind of danger a Sith holocron could contain. 

He could detect nothing. Perhaps the Jedi who had placed it into their vault on Vrogas Vas had disarmed it - or perhaps the trap was simply too subtle for him to see. He would take the risk. Cautiously, he extended the Dark Side to the Holocron, willing it to open. Parts of the inner crystal flared with red light, but the metal lattice protecting it did not come apart. Had there been some damage in the many years since it must have been made? That was unlikely; all holocrons were built to be nigh indestructible. And it was reacting to his use of the Force, simply… not recognising it as being quite right. Very curious. 

He tried again; a subtly different approach. Then another. He probed at the delicate mechanism with flavours of emotion, hate, rage, pain, yet nothing worked. Eventually Vader was forced to admit that if this was a puzzle then it had the better of him for the moment. He put it aside. He was becoming frustrated and that was not conducive to any kind of meditation, not even that of the Sith. 

Gradually Vader gave himself over to the Dark Side of the Force, let it sweep him up in its restless hunger and unfathomable depths, in its strength and surety. It was anger and it was power, and it would have leapt at his command, had he any for it. 

He had always been better at this kind of meditation than that of the Jedi.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we learn what secret Hondo had to share, Luke practises his bladework, Aphra considers future plans, and Luke speaks to his father again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The memory which Vader shows Luke is taken from the comic Star Wars: Dark Times, scans of which can be found [ here ](http://badshah-cornelius.tumblr.com/post/119729507543/panharmonium-executivenerd-amarielah-from) aka, I don't own it.

**0 ABY - Gannaria system, Trilon sector, edge of the Unknown Regions**

Hondo’s job had gone well. There had been no reason for Hera to expect anything else admittedly; the Sun Squad were nothing special and they hadn’t even left the Weequay’s freighter particularly well guarded. It had been simple enough to take them down with stun bolts and a little close combat work from Zeb, truss them up, and leave them somewhere they’d be found by someone not too unscrupulous. As for what Hondo himself planned to do the next time he ran into their gang, that he had only smiled about. Clearly he had some sort of plan, and knowing the way his luck tended to swing between excellent and terrible, she could only hope it wouldn’t blow up in his face. 

The information he had given them was worth the inconvenience. Hera just wondered how Hondo of all beings had got his hands on it. She had asked, but he had said he wanted to protect his source - and that was reasonable enough. She didn’t know the circumstances and butting her head in blindly could easily get someone killed. If this individual saw the need to leak plans again, they would find a way. Whoever they were, they were clearly reasonably high up. This new project… honestly, she was a little in awe. 

Hera loved ships, but she preferred those small enough to be flown by a single pilot. Light and nimble and fast. Starfighters were her favourite, but any freighter that could be sufficiently modified would hit the spot. Capital ships didn’t normally catch anything but her passing interest, and although in another life she might have admired the sleek lines of the ships that would become the Star Destroyers, they were symbols of too much evil and hatred now for her to have any love for them. But the ship she was looking at, albeit in a holo-capture taken quickly and speedily, not quite focused and angles all off, was simply something else. Even half-built, naked patches on her hull showing through to the superstructure below, she was awe-inspiring. And terrifying. 

The Super Star Destroyer _Executor_. First in a whole new line of capital ships. And from the scrawled signature, codes and annotations all over the set of plans on the datacard she’d been given, more than half of this design came straight from Darth Vader himself. 

Hera remembered her encounters with that _monster_ with a shiver. First on Lothal, when they’d lost Ezra, and then later when the Empire had followed their trail to the meeting with Phoenix Squadron. The strange TIE which had cut apart their entire complement of fighters and brought down their command cruiser… it had been like a bad dream. Learning from Fulcrum that the unbelievably skilled pilot who had done all that was none other than the Sith Lord had only made her more afraid. Hera hated being afraid. She had been scared too often when she was a child during the occupation of Ryloth, and she was heartily tired of the emotion. When something made her afraid, she got angry at it. 

Angry at Vader? She hated him. He had taken Ezra, a child full of energy and enthusiasm and _hope_ and turned him into a shadow, a puppet. A _thing_. Whatever the being was that had chased them across a dozen starsystems and killed Kanan in front of her, it certainly wasn’t Ezra Bridger any more. 

Could the Alliance make some kind of raid against Fondor? Destroy this ship, tear it apart before it could be birthed into the galaxy as another horror? Well, they were meeting an agent of the Alliance today. Perhaps she would find out. 

And speaking of that meeting, if they didn’t leave now they were going to be late. She and Sabine would wait at the cantina, with Zeb doing his best to lurk inconspicuously outside to keep an eye on who was coming and going. Chopper would be staying with the _Ghost_ \- even though the loose laws that governed Prithya Station forbade touching a ship not your own that didn’t stop the less principled residents or passers-through from trying. Or, Hera thought with a smile, those who were just looking to help out a friend, given that Spectre had just spent most of yesterday breaking that very law. After all, the Sun Squad had taken the ship from Hondo fair and square in a completely different sector of space. 

The three of them made their way to the Drunken Wookie. It wasn’t the only cantina on the station, but it was the least objectionable. Hera was used to the kind of looks just existing as a Twi’lek female would get her in these parts of space; she ignored them because to do anything else would quickly become exhausting. But the way eyes lingered on her in the _Wee Shahnit Killee_ and the Star’s Death set her on edge. She felt that the watchers were weighing up the credits she would fetch versus the cost of Matriarch Je’tarr finding out about it and only _just_ coming down on the side of doing nothing. 

Zeb took up his position with the hood of his cape drawn up to shadow his recognisable face and Hera and Sabine went inside. She had made arrangements earlier for a private booth with good lines of sight to all available ways in and out, and she checked her chrono as they settled in to wait. Not much longer until the beginning of the time-slot they’d agreed on. 

Almost right on time, three strangers wandered in. Hera could tell they were new to Prithya Station by the tiny moment of hesitation by the entrance, although they hid it well. Although… she frowned. She had been expecting two humans and a Wookie, but one of the shorter figures was wearing what looked like Ubese garb. Still, after a moment they spotted Sabine - the lone Mandalorian in the cantina, which was what they’d been told to look for - and headed their way. 

Hera nodded to the three cautiously as they settled into their seats. Next to her, Sabine leaned forwards, her hand on her blaster under the table. 

“What’s the deal Boushh?” she hissed. “I know for a _fact_ you aren’t with the Alliance!” 

Hera tensed. The Ubese reached up and pulled off their helmet, revealing a human woman, who ducked her head down so she couldn’t be seen over the high walls of the booth. “So that was the name of this bounty hunter,” she said. “Unfortunately it seems I have a price on my head at the moment. Hence… this.” She gestured to her get-up. 

“Alliance Commander Leia Organa, I presume,” Hera said. “You’ve come a long way for what a lot of people might call ancient history.” That was the first part of the passcode they had agreed on beforehand.

“Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it,” Leia replied. Hera nodded, satisfied. 

“Then we should all continue this conversation somewhere a little more private,” she said. “Come with me.”

\----

**0 ABY - Bast Castle, Vjun, Nuiri Sector, Outer Rim**

Luke was sweating and all his muscles ached, even ones he hadn’t been aware he even _had_ , but more important than any of that; he was having _fun_. It was good just to move, to stretch himself and test his limits. The lightsaber in his hand felt like it belonged there, and he was actually learning. Ben hadn’t had time to teach him any of this, not more than the very basics. Ezra might not have been someone he would have chosen as his teacher, but he seemed to be good at it. He didn’t try to go too fast, he started with the basics, and he was patient. 

Luke hadn’t been quite sure what to expect from the salle. He hadn’t even known what the word meant, although he’d figured it out from the context easily enough. The room the stormtrooper had led them to was bigger than he’d expected; a great high hall of the same black stone as the rest of the complex, but brightly lit for all that. Training droids of some kind lined the walls, although they were deactivated at the moment. Aphra had gravitated straight to them as soon as they came in and had stayed there ever since. 

Ezra had started by asking him which forms Ben had covered, then had to backtrack when Luke admitted that he hadn’t even gotten as far as that. The exercise with the remote and the blast helmet had been more about feeling the Force than using the blade. So they had begun with a series of movements - positions and footwork - that made up something called Shii-Cho. It wasn’t about finesse - that would come later - but it was meant to be simple, instinctive. And it was; Luke found himself taking to it easily. 

It was easier to draw on the Force like this as well. Just like it had been in the forest on Vrogas Vas. Luke wondered why. It was supposed to be meditation that helped you feel the Force all around you but meditation was just sitting there, thinking about nothing, or trying to. At least that’s what Luke thought the meaning of the word was, and it was how he had seen Ben do it, during their journey in the _Falcon_ to Alderaan. 

Or… to the remains of Alderaan. To the Death Star. 

Distracted, Luke almost lost his place in the chain of blocks and blows he’d been performing. 

“Again?” Ezra asked him. “Or do you need a break?”

Luke brushed his sweat-damp hair from his eyes. “No,” he said. “I’m good. I was just thinking about something else there for a moment.”

“If your brain has the energy to think then you’re not working hard enough,” Ezra said, grinning. The words had the sound of a quotation. “Try it faster; you have the shape of this kata down, so you just need to make your muscles remember it.”

That too was a strange concept. Before he’d joined the Rebellion, Luke had never before had to consider that he might have to fight. At least, not any more so than the odd tussle on the streets of Mos Eisley with fists and feet, or a blaster if things went _really_ wrong. Even as part of the Alliance all he’d needed to do was to be able to deflect a blaster bolt. His battleground had been the skies and the expanse of space, his weapon an X-wing. But they had left his X-wing back on Vrogas Vas and he doubted he’d ever see it again. 

He fell back into the motions of Shii-Cho, focusing only on his body, his lightsaber, and the Force. It felt different here, of course. The Dark Side was everywhere, the thick, oily, almost _congealed_ taint that he had come to recognise. It seemed to have a mind of its own in a way the Light Side didn’t - or at least didn’t outside of the temple trials he and Ezra had been through. It wasn’t something you could speak to, it didn’t _talk_ , and yet… it seemed to want things. It cuddled up to the people it liked and it moved around Luke himself warily, hungrily. It wanted him to use it. 

Luke didn’t trust it in the slightest. 

Besides, he could still use the Light Side here. It was harder to find it, at the start, but soon it came to him much as it ever had. He didn’t _need_ the Dark Side. 

Next to him, Ezra followed the same kata, setting a blistering pace for them both that someone not Force-sensitive would have had great difficulty following. It quickly forced all other thoughts out of Luke’s mind. That was almost a blessing in itself, but he couldn’t keep that speed up for long, not without starting to make mistakes. And once his rhythm was thrown off, that was it. He stepped back, deactivating his lightsaber and panting. He had taken off the heavier outer jacket a while ago but sweat had still soaked through the armpits of his shirt. He pulled the hem up to wipe his face. He really needed a drink, then a shower, then something to eat in that order. 

“I guess that’s enough for the day,” Ezra said, also a little out of breath. “You’ll have to find out from Lord Vader what his training plans are. It would be good to set aside a couple of hours every day for bladework - but I’m sure he’s already got everything worked out.”

“I _do_ need to speak to him again,” Luke admitted. He’d gotten used to the idea of Leia as his sister quickly enough - perhaps because the truth had felt so natural and right, or perhaps partly because after so many revelations he was getting used to the idea that his whole worldview could just be turned upside-down at any moment. His father though… Luke still felt uneasy about their confrontation this morning. His father didn’t seem to have taken the news well. That was another reason to talk to him, after he had left so abruptly. Luke wanted him to know he had meant what he said. 

“Lunch first though?” he suggested. “After a shower.” 

Ezra was quick to agree.

\----

Luke seemed to be enjoying himself at least, Aphra thought to herself, busy pretending she wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to the two teenagers in the center of the salle. She couldn’t call him Skywalker inside her head anymore after learning the truth, but any version of ‘Vader’ also failed to fit. First name it was then. She wasn’t exactly comfortable that he was so focused on the Inquisitor. She didn’t trust the Twelfth Brother, his motives, his allegiances, anything, although at least they could be sure by now that he wasn’t working for any of Vader’s enemies. If he had been, the Sith would have ripped that information right out of his head. No, he was just unsure of his loyalties, so much so that he’d attached himself to a boy they’d both thought at the time was a Rebel agent. 

But she couldn’t deny he was good in a fight. Nowhere near as good as Vader, but then _he_ was a force of nature, an army in himself. Bridger was… competent. That would be enough to teach someone the basics though, and perhaps that was the role he was going to serve for the foreseeable future; that and sparring partner. Putting Luke up against his father would be the definition of an unfair fight. 

Which just left what Aphra herself would be up to. Well probably she and the droids would return to doing something much the same as they had been. Lord Vader might have been given something of a reprise from General Tagge’s task-force serving as - what had Vader mockingly called it? - a blunt instrument, but that couldn’t last. There would be more insurgents, terrorists and rebels to hunt down and he would need a helpful agent for that. 

Aphra wondered how that was going to work with Luke here. She’d been very aware how obsessive Lord Vader got about Skywalker even before she had known just _why_. He wasn’t going to want to leave the kid behind, but equally it would be too big a risk to take him anywhere. Or would he accelerate his plans by refusing the Emperor’s orders? Vader had sounded very sure that there was no way to kill the Emperor except with him and his son both working together, so surely it would be in everyone’s best interests to play for time… 

Aphra fiddled with the wiring inside the training droid whose chest she had split open, just for something to do. It was a magma droid, a Seppie design from the Clone Wars. Made for fighting Jedi. There seemed to be a lot of Clone Wars stuff around here. It had taken her a while to figure it out, which was proof enough that all these Imps had thrown her off her game, but every single stormtrooper she had seen around here had to be a clone. They were all _exactly_ the same height, their voices were the same if you listened closely, and the markings on their armour were classic Clone Trooper identification marks. Which was _weird_. The Clones had been phased out early on in the days of the Empire, using one excuse or another, but as the years went by the simple mathematics of time did their work. Clones were _made_ to age at double speed - if they didn’t die in battle they simply got too old to be useful soldiers. Everyone here had to be at least the human-standard equivalent of sixty or more. 

Darth Vader had never before struck her as a man of sentiment, but apparently he had just been hiding it very close to his chest. There was literally no other reason to fill his most secret fortress with a garrison of geriatrics, and Aphra wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Some part of her was trying to insist that it was in some way touching, but _she_ wasn’t exactly inclined to being sentimental either. That was the sort of thing that got you killed. 

Luke and the Inquisitor seemed to have finished what they were doing, making plans for lunch. Aphra sauntered over to join them. It wasn’t as though she had anything better to do.

\----

**0 ABY - VCX-100 freighter _Ghost_ , Prithya Station, Trilon sector, edge of the Unknown Regions**

“My first question is this,” Leia said, taking a seat in the living quarters of Spectre cell’s freighter. She had already agreed with Han that she would take the lead on this. “Is Fulcrum still alive?”

The Twi’lek - Captain Hera Syndulla - and her Mandalorian friend - Sabine Wren - looked at each other. “The simple answer is… yes,” Hera said. 

Leia absorbed this. She wasn’t sure what answer she had been expecting. This one was better than she had hoped. “And the more complicated answer?” Which, presumably, would explain why nothing had been heard from the agent for the past three years. 

“That’s a long story,” Captain Syndulla said. “And one we needed to check we had permission to tell you.” The ‘we’ in question also included a tall, feline alien and an astromech - these were Garazeb Orrelios, a Lasat, and C1-10P according to the files High Command had given her. There had once been two other members of the cell, but… best not to dwell on what had happened to them. 

“Permission from Fulcrum?”

Hera nodded. “You joined the Alliance because of your father, Bail Organa, is that right?”

“I joined the Alliance because it was the right thing to do,” Leia replied. Hera looked pleased by this. 

“How much do you already know about Fulcrum, about her history?” she asked. 

“My father never mentioned her to me,” Leia admitted. “But even though I was technically a member of the Rebellion back then, he never approved of me joining so early. He wanted me to wait, and when I refused, he made me promise I wouldn’t do anything too risky. It doesn’t surprise me that he kept a Jedi a secret.”

“Fulcrum had been working with him for a long time - maybe even since just after the founding of the Empire,” Hera said. “It’s no surprise he wanted to keep her as safe as he could. Not that she was really a Jedi anymore - at least that’s what she told us. Fulcrum’s real name is Ahsoka Tano, and she left the Jedi Order during the Clone Wars. After the rise of the Empire she made contact with your father because she trusted him, and he recruited her to become a part of the Alliance.”

Before Leia had a chance to say anything else, Chewbacca let out a long, warbling howl. Han’s surprised reaction was obvious. “Yeah?” he said. “You didn’t mention that.”

Chewie barked a reply. Leia reminded herself that she’d been meaning to try and learn at least a little Shyriiwook - it would certainly make times like this less frustrating. She’d been putting it off because there never seemed to be any _time_ in amongst all her responsibilities to the Alliance but… didn’t she owe it to Chewie to understand him without using Han as a translator? 

“Something the matter?” Hera asked. 

“Chewie fought in the Clone Wars,” Han explained. “He told us earlier that he only met some Jedi called Yoda, but now he says that’s not true. He just didn’t remember it before you said that name.” Chewbacca howled. Han nodded. “Yeah, plus, it’s an embarrassing story because he got himself captured by Trandoshan Game-Hunters and had to be saved by a bunch of baby Jedi and General Tarfful.”

Leia knew Chewbacca certainly hadn’t been _trying_ to keep things from her, but she couldn’t stop feeling that way at least a little. She wasn’t entirely sure why this whole topic had become such an obsession for her except that she felt that somehow, when she got to the heart of it all, it would give her what she needed to strike against Vader. 

“So your Wookie friend met Ahsoka when she was still a Padawan,” Captain Syndulla said. “I’d say it was a coincidence, but I’ve seen enough of the Force to know that it can work in mysterious ways. Perhaps it’s the will of the Force that you speak to her.”

“That’s if she’s even able to help me,” Leia said. “I’m trying to find out what happened to the Jedi General Anakin Skywalker at the end of the war… but perhaps she didn’t even know him.”

Except… she didn’t miss the look of surprise on any of the faces opposite her. Even the Lasat had perked up his ears at the sound of that one particular name. 

“Oh, Fulcrum definitely knew Skywalker,” Hera told her. “She was his Padawan - his student.”

Chewie growled - Leia knew that particular noise meant his agreement. She breathed in sharply. This was more luck than she had thought to hope for. “Do you think she would be willing to talk to us about him?” she asked.

“I’m not sure.” Hera frowned. “She only mentioned Skywalker once or twice, and it was clearly a painful subject for her. Even if she had left the Order, even if he wasn’t her Master anymore, losing him like that…” Leia said nothing. It would be kinder to say nothing until she was sure, and maybe even then. If she was going to tell anyone who didn’t already know what she suspected about Anakin Skywalker, then it was Fulcrum - Ahsoka - who deserved to know first. “I think she will though,” Hera continued. “She already agreed to talk to you about the Clone Wars. This is still part of that time.”

“Where can we find her?” Leia asked, already eager. Perhaps she would finally get some firm answers!

“There’s a base - more of a safehouse,” Hera said. “Out in the Unknown Regions. Outpost Umbra. She’s there.”

“The co-ordinates?”

“We’re coming with you,” Hera said firmly. “It’s been too long since we saw Fulcrum. Besides, there’s something else we need to talk about. Information that the Alliance needs.”

“What do you mean?” Leia asked. 

Hera told her. Leia swore. 

“You have the plans for this thing?” she asked. The Twi’lek nodded. Leia felt torn. They should tell the Alliance about this - a ship like that was the definition of a high-value target. But she had her own mission here, and this was far too delicate to be trusted to the HoloNet where an Imperial sweep might pick up a large data package transmission. It needed a live courier - and she couldn’t be that. Not yet. 

But there was time. The _Executor_ wasn’t slated to be finished for months yet - a quick trip to meet this Jedi wouldn’t set them back too far. 

“Fulcrum first,” she told them. “But then I _will_ get this into the hands of High Command, and you can rest assured that we _will_ act on it.”

\----

**0 ABY - Bast Castle, Vjun, Nuiri Sector, Outer Rim**

After filling his stomach with nutrient paste and dry military crackers, Luke cornered one of the stormtroopers guarding their rooms and asked to be taken to his father. The trooper hesitated. “Lord Vader said he wasn’t to be disturbed sir. I’m sorry.”

“Yes, but I’m sure he’d make an exception for his son,” Luke said. The blue-daubed helmet tilted, and he felt the weight of the man’s eyes on him. 

“The Commander did mention that,” the soldier said. “You do look like him, I suppose. Well, come on.”

He turned swiftly and started marching off along the corridor before Luke could think how to ask how this man knew anything about how he resembled his father. He had to take a few steps at a jog to catch up, his mind spinning. He realised that he had no idea what Vader looked like beneath that black mask. He’d heard rumours aplenty bandied about amongst members of the Alliance but who knew if any of that was accurate? There would have been no trace of the Jedi Anakin Skywalker on the HoloNet left uncensored either even if he had known specifically to look before now. 

“Just how long have you worked for my father?” he asked cautiously. It seemed the most tactful way to approach it.

“A hell of a long damned time sir, if you’ll pardon my language. Never heard of him having a kid before now though.”

“That’s… a long story,” Luke said. It was hard to know what was going on under that helmet. Easy to forget the stormtroopers were even people sometimes - the more so when they were shooting you and you were shooting back. He’d killed a lot of people just like this one in the past months - had he even questioned it? Half of them were conscripts, weren’t they? Not that the recruiters ever bothered coming out to Tatooine, but it was still common knowledge. The kind you were aware of in the back of your head and didn’t think about too much. Not, admittedly, that he’d ever had much _choice_ about killing stormtroopers.

“The story’s not particularly any of my business sir.”

“You don’t need to call me sir.”

The trooper shrugged. “My lord?” he suggested. Luke winced. 

“No thank you,” he said. “Just Luke is fine, honestly. I haven’t earned any sort of rank.”

“I don’t know about that,” the trooper said, with a hint of humour in his voice. “I don’t think they ever got around to repealing the part of the Military Creation Act regarding Jedi. Padawans are automatically awarded a rank of Commander according to law.”

Luke couldn’t help but stare. “I’m not exactly a Jedi Padawan,” he said. “And if I was, then I’d also legally be a criminal, so how can I be a criminal _and_ a Commander?”

“I didn’t write the laws,” the stormtrooper said. Luke sensed an echo of laughter through the Force. He’d have been willing to bet the man was smiling under his helmet. 

“So what’s _your_ name?” he asked, rather than be drawn further along that line of inquiry.

“Gamma. Or designation CT-8634 if you prefer.”

“Okay, Gamma.” Obviously Luke wasn’t going to go around calling anyone CT-8634. “That’s an unusual name.”

Gamma shrugged. “It’s the one I chose. Anyway, we’re here.” He pointed to the turbolift they had just stopped in front of. “Lord Vader’s quarters are up there.”

Luke still had plenty of questions, but he had come here with a specific aim in mind. There would be time to talk to Gamma again later. “Thanks,” he said, as the lift’s doors slid open with a gentle hiss. 

“Good luck sir,” Gamma said, giving him a salute. Then the doors slid closed again and the turbolift began to move. Luke steeled himself. His father was still keeping their connection closed off, so there was no way of knowing what Vader might be feeling. Whether he would really be angry at being disturbed. He just had to hope for the best. 

The lift seemed to go up a long way. Finally it stopped and Luke stepped out into what had once been a simple and sparse room, except that right now it looked more like someone had taken a wrecking ball to it. Or as though some kind of immensely powerful explosion had gone off in the center of the room; the floor was a crater and so was the ceiling, and the walls weren’t much better off either. Luke felt a small frisson of fear. Was this his father’s doing? For a moment he thought better of coming here, but it was a little too late to back down now. 

As for Vader himself, Luke could feel that he was close by, but he couldn’t see any trace of him. There were doors leading off the main room; one particularly heavy set caught his eye. Why would his father have blast doors in his personal quarters? He went over to investigate, stepping cautiously around the cracked flagstones underfoot. There was an ident chip reader on the wall there, one of the standard Imp models of the kind he’d seen plenty of on the Death Star. Luke hesitated. He could try and hack it himself, but he didn’t like his chances. Aphra could have done it - but she was an agent of his father. 

There was no way in. Luke sighed in frustration. He hadn’t expected the door to be _locked_ \- although he should have. He should just go back to his own rooms, but… there had to be something else he hadn’t tried, some way. Perhaps the Force. 

He’d been using it all morning; he knew how to find it now, the thread amidst the darkness. He felt for his father’s cold fire, that powerful, terrible, presence. The Dark Side here seemed to envelop it, the edges between it and Vader harder to see. But he was here, even if Luke wouldn’t have been able to point a finger in the right direction. Still, there was really only one place he could be - behind those doors. 

_Father?_ He thought, reaching out. _Are you there?_

Abruptly, the wall at the other end of their connection came down. Luke sensed a momentary flicker of surprise. 

_Luke?_ His father sounded… different, like this. More human without the deep boom of the vocoder. _What are you doing here?_

_I wanted to talk to you_ , Luke replied. It felt strange speaking like this, but not in a bad way. _I need to know what you have planned, for me, for everything. And I still have so many questions…_

_A conversation best had in person,_ Vader said. _I shall be out momentarily._

Luke frowned. _Why can’t I come in?_ It had been more a passing thought than something he’d actually wanted to _say_ , but clearly communicating this way wasn’t as simple as he’d assumed. 

_These chambers are under hyperbaric pressure_ , his father explained. _I require it to go without my suit, but it would not be healthy for you, son._

Oh. Luke hadn’t even thought… Darth Vader was a symbol, a weapon, the Empire’s might personified - or that was his old way of thinking of him. The way he’d seen him when he’d been part of the Alliance, before he’d learned the truth. Although Luke had come to accept that Vader was his father it seemed he still wasn’t used to having a mental image of him as the person he was, rather than what he represented. 

Vader left their Force connection open rather than shutting it down again as he got back into the armour. Vague flashes of feelings drifted along it, the sort that made Luke worry. If there was anger it was turned inwards and while in other circumstances that might have been a good thing if it made Vader think twice about what he did for the Empire, Luke couldn’t help but feel that it was only going to make things worse. That was how the Dark Side worked, wasn’t it? Pain. Anger. He’d felt how thick and cloying it had been this morning. 

Eventually the outer door of the airlock hissed open and his father emerged. The blank helmet turned as he looked at the mess the ante-chamber was in and Luke felt a slight brush of shame from him. So he _had_ done this - and there was only one obvious piece of news that might have provoked it. Not that Luke was going to bring _that_ up if he could help it.

“So…” he said, hesitant now that he was finally facing his father again. “Um. What comes next?”

“For you?” Vader replied. “More of the training which you began this morning.”

“I’m not going to start using the Dark Side…” Luke began, but his father cut him off. 

“No; you are too stubborn to be persuaded so easily. Yet I have no doubts that you _will_ come to see the truth in time. However the forms of lightsaber combat are the same whether used by Jedi or Sith.”

“Are you going to teach me?” The idea was intimidating. He’d fought Vader before and it had never gone well.

“With the assistance of the Twelfth Brother,” his father replied. 

Luke supposed that was acceptable. Anything that meant he wasn’t being pressured to become a Sith was a good thing. “Do you have time for more questions? I didn’t interrupt anything important, did I?” The thought had only just occurred to him. It had been rude of him to just barge up here, even after he had been told his father wasn’t to be disturbed. Yet he sensed Vader wasn’t angry about it. 

“Only my meditation,” his father said. “There is much that Kenobi kept from you; I would rather take the time to correct your misconceptions.”

“Can we talk some more about my mother?” Luke asked hesitantly. 

“What do you wish to know?”

“How did you first meet? Before, you said that she was a senator when you met her for the _second_ time.”

“It was on Tatooine,” Vader said. It was clear his father would rather not discuss that time, that the memories were complicated, good and bad all mixed together… but he was speaking all the same. “Kenobi and his Master brought her there. They were accompanying her due to a complicated political situation on Naboo.” 

“Why Tatooine?” Luke asked. Naboo might have only been a short jump along the Triellus Trade Run, but there was nothing of any importance to be found on Tatooine. No reason to go there - no one went there unless they had to. 

“Padme’s ship required repairs after escaping the Trade Federation blockade.” At Luke’s expression of confusion, his father added, “The Imperial curriculum does not mention the Naboo Trade Crisis. Yet it was one of the first steps towards the Clone Wars.”

“I was homeschooled,” Luke confessed. “Although I still had to take the Imperial Standardised Exams. Not that my Aunt or Uncle told me much about the time before the Empire.” He did want to ask more about Naboo, about this crisis, but if he did they would inevitably be drawn off track, and he didn’t want to be distracted from their topic. He’d already been interrupted from asking about his mother once. “So my mother came to Tatooine,” he said, “and… she met you while she was looking for parts. I remember Aunt Beru mentioning a name once; Watto?”

The harsh crackle from his father’s vocoder was almost a snarl. “My _owner_ ,” he said. “Yes.”

“So if my mother was travelling with the Jedi, then that was how they found you?” Luke asked. He didn’t need to hear the details nor would his father have given them. It was enough to know that he’d been a slave; he could draw enough conclusions about how he’d been treated from that. “And they freed you and took you to be trained?

“It would be more accurate to say they won me in a bet,” Vader said sharply. Luke could only stare at him in shock. He had said it so matter-of-fact, and the anger he felt from his father wasn’t focused on _that_ , but the memories of slavery itself. He had been imagining something… he didn’t even know. Something heroic. Spiriting his father away from his master in the dead of night, smuggling him off planet after removing or deactivating his detonator, not _that_. Not even _buying_ him, as bad as that would have been! Gambling with a person’s life, with their freedom… 

“How could Jedi do something like that?” he asked. 

“You perceive the hypocrisy of the Jedi,” Vader told him. “Guardians of peace and justice - when it suited them.”

“And the Empire?” Luke replied, shaking himself free of the sharp, sickening stab of disappointment. “What about all those slaves - or do they not count because they aren’t human?”

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting his father to say. How he might have justified it to himself. But Vader remained silent, his helmet turning just enough that Luke knew he was looking away. Conflict roiled through their connection, and a memory. Perhaps he was being shown this because there could be no words. 

In the memory, the Emperor stood on a balcony above the broad expanse of a spaceport large enough for Star Destroyers. Luke saw through his father’s eyes, looking down at the hunched, hooded figure. 

_“I have heard from Commander Vill… on New Plympto,”_ his father had said. Quietly, almost hesitantly. The Emperor turned; even through Vader’s eyes Luke saw only the glint of yellow pupils in the shadows. 

_“Ah. I should have remembered. Anakin Skywalker was a slave - as was his mother.”_ There was an edge to those words; they held barbs. Luke felt himself shudder, outside of the memory. _“My apologies Lord Vader, I should have explained the current situation sooner. The slavery that exists in the lawless reaches of the Outer Rim is wrong. The trading in individual’s lives and freedom for personal gain must end. And it will - in time. But what the Empire is doing on New Plympto - and elsewhere - is different.”_ Was it honey or poison that dripped from the Emperor’s lips, Luke wondered, feeling vaguely nauseous. 

_“Unrepentant Separatists like the Nosaurians must be dealt with. Put to work, they will make a positive contribution to the Empire and their lives will be spared. It is a merciful alternative to what would otherwise be necessary. I’m certain you understand.”_

Vader had, and Luke did too. Genocide. The Empire was more than willing to do it. They _had_ done it, on enough planets. But trying to justify slavery by saying at least it was better than death - what kind of argument was that! Only a monster would think… 

But perhaps his father had been willing to believe it because he just couldn’t accept the truth. For some reason he believed in the Empire, in whatever lies about its goals Sidious had told him, and he couldn’t do that if he admitted what he was complicit in. 

“It _will_ end,” Vader said. “All of it. When the Emperor lies dead at our feet.”

It all came back to that, didn’t it. Luke would like nothing better than to see the Emperor overthrown, and maybe they _would_ have to kill him to do it, but that didn’t mean he was willing to have either himself or his father take his place, or to fall to the Dark Side to see them succeed! Not that he was ever likely to win an argument with Vader about it. 

“Let’s go back,” he said, forcing a smile. “You were telling me about my mother.”

That at least he could listen to for hours - and did.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Han is sceptical of this whole endeavour, Vader has little choice but to make a dangerous gamble, and Leia finally finds someone who can tell her the truth.

**0 ABY - YT-1300 _Millenium Falcon_ , en-route to Outpost Umbra, Unknown Regions**

Han didn’t feel overly comfortable about any of this. Leia’s injury had been serious and it couldn’t be good for her to be pushing on so soon after it happened. Plus he wasn’t sure she was going to find what she was looking for. The whole idea that Darth Vader could be the Jedi General Anakin Skywalker didn’t get any less ridiculous the more times he heard it, and he was sure this Fulcrum character would agree with him. If anyone asked his opinion, which of course they weren’t, they should be focusing on the information Captain Syndulla had handed over. Leia had let him see the plans on that datapad and they made Han’s blood run cold. He knew Star Destroyers - he’d been a junior officer on one for a while, after all - and this thing… It was no Death Star, but there were no small weaknesses to exploit here, and for the price of a Death Star you could build dozens of these things!

Nothing the Alliance had could take down a capital ship that big. This was the durasteel boot of the Empire writ large, ready to stamp down on the Alliance and the Outer Rim once and for all. But instead of telling High Command about it, instead of trying to come up with some kind of plan to sabotage it or hell, _steal_ it, they were chasing after old legends and lies. 

The Jedi were dead and their mystical powers had died with them. Heroes or villains, it didn’t much matter anymore. People who tried to bring them back ended up like that old hermit, Ben Kenobi. The Rebellion stood little enough of a chance as it was without learning the wrong sort of lessons from folks like that. Not that Han had borne the old man any ill will, but he hadn’t trusted what he was telling Luke. The kid was too young to fill his head with tall tales and point him in the Empire’s direction. It was a miracle he hadn’t been killed before now, and since he’d fallen into Vader’s hands… who knew what was going to happen to him?

If Leia wanted to continue her vendetta against Vader - and sure why not, Han could completely understand her reasoning - then _that’s_ where she should be heading. To rescue Luke. This… they weren’t going to find anything. Not anything they could _use_. 

They had been given coordinates that were leading them out into uncharted reaches of space; the Unknown Regions. No nice, safe hyperspace routes for them to follow out here; they just had to trust that the calculations they’d been given were correct, and if anything went wrong, who the kriff knew how they were going to get back without any bearings to guide them. They were trusting that this ‘Spectre’ cell was friendly, that they knew what they were doing, and that was a lot of faith to place in beings they had only just met. 

So far they hadn’t managed to fly into a sun, so things were going better than Han could have expected. 

The navicomputer finally spat them out of hyperspace in a little system in the middle of nowhere. Syndulla’s ship, the _Ghost_ , reverted moments later and took the lead on sub-light power. Their course took them swiftly to the planet that was their destination; a ball of welcoming green and blue orbited by two moons. 

“Do you really think you’re going to get all the answers you need here?” he asked Leia as they began to cut down into atmosphere. 

For a brief moment Leia closed her eyes. When she spoke it was with utter confidence. “Yes,” she said. “The people here - this ex-Jedi Ahsoka Tano - can tell me things that I have to know. This is important.”

“And afterwards?”

“Afterwards we can think about dealing with _Executor_. That’ll be more than enough to draw Vader out, and if he _is_ Anakin Skywalker then we will find some way to use that against him. I’ve underestimated him once; I won’t again.” 

Han still had a bad feeling about this, but he knew when to shut up - well sometimes he did. It was too late to turn back now.

\----

**0 ABY - Bast Castle, Vjun, Nuiri Sector, Outer Rim**

His son had returned to his own rooms. They had been talking for many hours, or rather, Vader had been talking. To speak for so long was taxing to his damaged vocal chords and rapidly became painful, but that was a price he was willing to bear to share the memories of his beloved Padmé with their son. Luke deserved to know _everything_ about her. He spoke of her bravery in battle, her loyalty to her people as their queen, her bold strike against the Trade Federation. He spoke of their love, caught in secret moments between missions and the raging tide of the war. He spoke even of learning that she was pregnant and the joy it had awoken in both their hearts. 

What would she say to him now, if she had learned what he had done to their daughter? How could he ever have faced her? 

He tried to shake himself free of those thoughts. He would have deserved her anger; he had no right to pity himself. Meditation had helped settle his mind, but it could only do so much in the face of the great wrong he had wrought. There was work to be done, and it could not be much longer before he was summoned again, either by the Emperor or by Tagge. It would be better if it was Tagge; Vader had managed to keep his plotting secret from the General thus far and he would continue to do so even when the stakes were higher. He could have no such assurances when dealing with Sidious. 

Rising, he went to his personal terminal and brought up the Imperial Navy personnel files. Several names were already at the forefront of his mind, picked from amongst the many individuals he had worked with in the past. There were certain qualities looked for amongst the high-ranking members of military, administrative, and intelligence wings of Imperial authority and it had always been an annoyance to him that competency was only one of them - and not necessarily the most important one either. The Emperor cared more that his subordinates were loyal than always successful. Vader could understand the thought process behind this; after being so terribly betrayed by the Jedi Order, it was only natural for his Master to take pains to ensure it could never happen again. Unfortunately this did make things more difficult for his own plans. 

Sidious did not care whether his officers and Moffs served because they truly believed or merely because they feared him too much to move against him. Fear was a useful tool, but not one that would serve Vader in this matter. If he intended a coup of any kind it would do no good if his suborned soldiers buckled when faced with the inevitable price of their mutiny. They must be strong, steadfast, and they must _believe_. 

Who amongst the current leadership of the Empire - aside from himself - would risk all of their power, position and influence for the good of the galaxy? Even those who truly believed in the order the Empire represented rather than their own self-interest had faith in Sidious - and could he really claim they were wrong to do so? After all, his Master had ushered in a new, safe, peaceful galaxy, and it was only because so many sentients refused to see it that they were driven to such ruthless tactics. Once these traitors and rebels were crushed, the iron fist could be relaxed. 

That was what Vader had always told himself. However, that was before he had become aware of Sidious’ deception. It was not evidence he could use to sway anyone but himself - what was one small lie in the greater scheme of things? And yet if Sidious had lied to his own apprentice, to Vader himself, then what else might he have lied about? The Alliance to Restore the Republic had shown no signs of slowing down in recent years and had only gone from strength to strength, which meant the Empire’s current methods were not working. Once Luke was Emperor though, the rebels would see that the Empire now had a leader who understood their grievances, who was no lying politician, and they would finally disappear, pacified. 

It would not come about quickly. And Luke was an unknown to the Empire itself. The power base to support him had to be in place - and it only became more clear, looking over the files available to him, that it could not come from the old guard. No, Vader would have to ensure the support of younger officers, those who would welcome the possibilities of clearing out the dead weight at the top. He began to assemble a dossier; competent, idealistic, clever… He would speak to them personally, secretly. He would have their loyalty. 

One of these names in particular… Before the destruction of the Death Star, when Vader had been in better favour, his Master had given him the honour of picking the Captain of his new flagship - the ship even now being built at Fondor to his own specifications. Vader might now be in disgrace, but this at least had not been taken from him, not yet. It was vital that this Captain be _his_ man, and he had chosen accordingly. A young Captain Piett, recently awarded honours for his showing at the battle of Turkana with the ISD- _Accuser_ , and pride of the Axxilan anti-pirate fleet before that. 

He would have to arrange to speak to Piett before long; with the completion of _Executor_ a mere three months-Standard away, the orders to supervise its final stages of construction and launch from space-dock would come through to the Captain shortly. Vader was unwilling to leave Vjun so soon, but he was certainly aware of Doctor Aphra’s growing unease at remaining in the Imperial stronghold which Bast Castle represented. She would be eager to leave on his behalf, and he could trust her to act as he would in such vital and delicate circumstances. 

Vader was roused from his thoughts by the ping of an incoming message. It was not coming from inside the Castle, which left only two possibilities - the only two individuals who had the ability to access his private HoloNet channel here. Sidious or Tagge. Neither option was pleasing. 

He answered in his holoprojector chamber - if it was Tagge the honour would be undeserved, but at least the damage he had inflicted to the antechamber of his quarters would be concealed. It was not Tagge. At the appearance of his Master’s face, Vader dropped to one knee, bowing his head respectfully. He waited for Sideous to speak. 

“Lord Vader.” As always his Master’s voice was soft, knowing. It hinted that it already knew whatever secrets one might be trying to hide, and merely waited for a single slip to strike and reveal its knowledge. Vader did not attempt to calm his mind but threw up a barrier of his shifting emotions behind his already-strong shields. Sidious would look, but how deeply? “I seems that even absent Tagge’s guiding hand you have been busy.”

“To what do you refer, my Master?”

“Perhaps you do not consider hunting rebels something worth reporting. Or perhaps that is only the case when you fail to kill them?”

Here was the trap. Did Sidious refer to Vrogas Vas - had the ISB vessel managed to transmit a message before its destruction? Or did he mean his actions on board the Rebel ship _Advocate_ , where he had come so close to killing his _daughter._ If he did not guess correctly then he would reveal more to his Master than he could afford to be known. 

“A minor matter,” Vader said after a moment. “Not worthy of your attention.”

“Princess _Organa_ was within your grasp,” Sidious sneered. “And yet she lives. Have you grown incompetent, Lord Vader, or simply foolish?”

“Neither, my lord.” And here he would take a gamble. A dangerous gamble, but he was well aware of the bounty now levied on his daughter’s head - dead or alive. “I sensed something unusual when I was fighting the Princess. She is Force-sensitive.”

“Is this so?” Nothing could be read in his Master’s reaction. “And yet I have not felt anything from the girl in all her years in the Senate. Are you so sure this is not simple sentiment?”

“Someone has taught her to shield herself, my master,” Vader replied. “But the strength of her emotions revealed the truth to me.”

“You suspect she can be turned.”

“She would make an excellent Inquisitor, master,” Vader replied. Let Sidious think that was all. Let him give the order to take Leia alive. The rebels would keep her safe and if they were too incompetent to do so, then he would go to Mustafar himself to retrieve her. But all of it rested on his Master believing only that she was nothing special. That Bail Organa had used his position to exempt her the usual tests - which he must have done. Sidious could not suspect the connection between them. He _could not_. If he did, Leia would never have survived as long as she had as a senator. 

“Consider also how we could use her against the rebels, master,” he continued. “If she could be turned…”

“A great victory for our propaganda,” Sidious said, with a very faint smile. “Yes, Lord Vader. It seems you acted correctly in sparing her life. And yet despite all this, you did not report it to me. Did you consider training her yourself?”

“Her hate for me is too strong,” Vader admitted. 

“Oh, an apprentice full of hate can be a useful thing,” his Master replied, eyes glinting, sounding amused. “But if you feel yourself incapable of the subtlety required to handle Organa, I shall send another agent to retrieve her. In the meantime I believe you have spent enough time without a guiding hand . Expect new orders from Tagge shortly.”

“Yes Master,” Vader said. The transmission ended. 

Had he done the right thing? Or had he only put his daughter in yet more danger? The only thing he could do was trust in the Force and hope. 

\----

**0 ABY - Outpost Umbra, Unknown Regions**

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Rex asked her. 

“I’m fine,” Ahsoka replied, “or at least as good as I’m going to get.” After that final clash with Vader she would never be back to her old self, but she was alive and that was more than she’d had reason to expect. That was part of why she had agreed to this meeting. 

How many years now had it been since she’d last seen Leia Organa? Anakin’s daughter had been eight and her strength in the Force starting to be a problem for Bail and Breha. She would wake from terrible nightmares and speak of fire and war and other things she should never have had any knowledge of. Bail had spoken to Master Kenobi, and Obi-Wan had spoken to her. He hadn’t told her why he couldn’t make the journey to Alderaan himself, but given how famous he had become by the end of the war there had been a good chance he might have been recognised. So Ahsoka had been introduced to Bail and Breha Organa, and to the child they had adopted. 

Leia had been a revelation. Ahsoka remembered thinking that this was what Anakin must have been like when he was that young; bright, warm, happy, full of potential. The memory held bitterness now. No-one had told her _exactly_ why it was so important that Leia be taught how to conceal herself, how to hide, had only mentioned their fear of the Inquisitorius, but they must have known. They must have, and they hadn’t told her. She had been left to find _that_ out on her own. What her Master had become… 

Ahsoka had done as she was asked, passed on everything she herself had learned about hiding in this new world that was not kind to Jedi, made sure that only someone who knew exactly what to look for would be able to tell that Leia Organa could touch the Force, and then she had left Alderaan just ahead of Darth Vader’s anticipated visit. 

Rex helped her stand, supported her against the rush of vertigo that now accompanied any movement. Their scanners had detected the approach of their guests and it would not be long now before they landed. Ahsoka wanted to be there to meet them. She wanted to see the young woman that Leia Organa had grown into. Would she remember her? It had been so long ago, and for such a brief time, but she hoped… Her Master was long lost to her, to them all, but his daughter was everything that he had once been. How had it all gone so wrong? Another question she had never found the answer to. 

Her home now was a base in one of the many mountainous regions of the planet they had called Outpost Umbra, partially built and partially carved from the stone itself. It had already been here when they had found the planet, but its builders were a mystery. They had left no traces of themselves. But the atmosphere was breathable, the weather mild, and the native fauna plentiful, and it was far, far away from the Empire. A perfect place to recover. 

As Ahsoka made her way outside, two freighters appeared through the cloud cover and settled in turn onto the landing platform jutting from the side of the cliff. Hera and her crew emerged from the _Ghost_ , quickly joined by three figures from the other ship. Ahsoka couldn’t stop the smile from spreading over her face as she saw the woman who was undoubtedly Leia. It looked like she’d inherited Padmé’s height, and her looks. 

“That’s her?” Rex asked, from her side. 

Ahsoka nodded. Suddenly she did not trust her voice. 

“Of all the Jed, it _would_ have been General Skywalker that had a kid,” Rex said. 

Ahsoka worked the words around the lump of emotion in her throat. “I hope you’ve been practising your stories about Anakin,” she said. “That’s what they’ve come here to talk about.”

It wasn’t going to be an easy conversation. Hera hadn’t said much over her transmission, only that Leia wanted to speak to someone who knew Anakin Skywalker, that it was something to do with Darth Vader.. How much did they know? Leia had somehow found out - or at least suspected - that those two were one and the same, but did she know who _she_ was to him? Had her parents ever told her? Was Ahsoka really going to be the one to break that to her? And Hera… Ahsoka had never told her the truth about Vader. Hera idolised Anakin because he had been part of the force that broke the siege of Ryloth and she had suffered enough without taking yet another good memory from her.

As the group approached, Ahsoka was able to get a better look at Leia’s companions. One was a Wookie - an oddly-familiar looking Wookie - and the other, a human male, looked like a smuggler. Not that unusual for rebels if she was honest, drawn as they were from all corners of the galaxy. As for Hera, Sabine, Zeb and Chopper… they looked well. Although Leia herself… there was a drawn, tight look around her eyes, and she held one of her hands awkwardly - a hand which had the glint of metal. 

That was the kind of coincidence that made Ahsoka uneasy.

“Ahsoka,” Hera said, greeting her. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” Ahsoka replied. “Gregor and Wolffe would have been here to greet you as well, but our supplies have been running a little thin recently. They’re out hunting.” This was half the reason; the other was that she didn’t want to alarm their guests. Those two could be difficult to get along with the first time you met them. 

“You must be Ahsoka Tano,” Leia said. She was doing a good job managing not to stare - her smuggler friend wasn’t as successful. Ahsoka was well aware most Togruta wouldn’t have survived the injuries she’d taken at Vader’s hand. Only the Force had allowed her to stave off the inevitable infections, to manage the pain of exquisitely delicate nerve endings exposed to the world. 

If she had ducked a little further, she would have survived unscathed, a little less and she would have lost her head. Instead, Vader’s lightsaber had passed through both her montrals, just above her skull. It had been the most agonising experience of her life. He could have killed her then; there was no way she would have been able to defend herself. She had just lost one of her senses, after all. But he hadn’t. He had shown mercy, of a kind, and she still didn’t know why. 

It couldn’t have been because some remnant of Skyguy remained inside the monster. To believe that would be too painful. 

“Commander Organa,” she said, smiling. “Welcome.”

“My friends are Captain Han Solo and Chewbacca,” Leia said, gesturing to each as she introduced them. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Chewie?” Ahsoka asked, astonished.

[Hello Ahsoka!] the Wookie roared, clapping his hand on her shoulder in a Wookie greeting. She was sure he would have hugged her if she had looked more steady on her feet. [It’s been so long…]

“Meeting again like this… it must be the will of the Force,” Ahsoka said, unable to keep herself from grinning. After General Tarfful had brought her and the other younglings back to the temple, she hadn’t thought she would ever see Chewbacca again, and certainly not in these sort of circumstances! 

[Ahsoka, what happened to you?]

She winced, the action involuntary. “A long story, but… Vader.” The memory rose up in her mind, dark and painful, and she did her best to release the emotions it brought with it to the Force. She never seemed to be entirely successful with that, and had long since given up the attempt with anything but anger and hate. “Let’s not talk about it now. Commander Organa - Leia. I’m sure you don’t remember this, but we have actually met before.When you were a child. Although of course I was good friends with your father - I suppose, with both of your fathers.”

That had startled her; Leia’s reaction was clear despite her attempt to control it. Captain Solo raised an eyebrow too. “ _Both_ my fathers? You knew my biological parents as well?” So she _didn’t_ know the whole truth then. It would be up to Ahsoka to tell her.

“I did,” she said. “But come inside, everyone. There’s a lot for us to discuss and it’s better to do that somewhere comfortable.”

She turned, leaning on Rex’s shoulder, and let the world settle again before leading them into the building. Their living area had been set up inside one long, low room with a single window penetrating the length of one wall funneling in the cool mountain winds. In winter, shutters could be lowered over it to keep in the heat. The four of them slept up at one end in a mess of bedrolls and cots. They had gotten used to close company and it reminded her of the good parts of the Clone Wars, the camaraderie. At the other end was the open-plan kitchen, where a pan of hot water was now just coming to the boil. Rex helped Ahsoka to a seat and went to pour it over the tea leaves waiting in the pot. 

Their guests took their own seats, aside from Chopper, and Chewbacca - with his height he found it easier to simply sit on the floor. Ahsoka laced her fingers together, her hands resting in her lap, and calmed her mind. 

“Hera told me of what you’ve discovered,” she said. No point in doing anything other than stating it bluntly. “You believe that Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker are the same man. I haven’t told anyone else this except Captain Rex, and only because he was the one to find me in the aftermath of my duel with Vader, but… you are right.”

“ _What?_ ” Hera whispered. Leia herself looked only vindicated to hear the truth. To have her suspicions confirmed. 

“What are you talking about?” Hera continued. “Commander Organa, you never said _this_ … Ahsoka, you can’t be serious!”

Ahsoka avoided her gaze. “This is why I said nothing,” she said quietly. “The Jedi - Anakin especially - have always been symbols of hope. Even with all of the Imperial propaganda tarnishing their name, that is still the case. I didn’t want to destroy that for you.”

“You should still have said something,” Hera told her. It didn’t even require the Force to feel her pain at Ahsoka’s lie. 

The brief silence and the weight of Hera’s betrayed glare were broken by Rex, choosing just the right moment to appear with the tea and a tray stacked with cups, offering them round before joining the table at her side. He inhaled steam from his own mug and sipped appreciatively, as though this was the most normal conversation that could be imagined. Ahsoka appreciated the quiet support.

“Was he always a traitor?” Leia asked sharply. “A _monster_?” Ahsoka sensed anger from her, dangerous anger. Emotions like that could so easily be a path to the Dark Side, and just because Leia was suppressing her Force presence didn’t mean she couldn’t succumb. But they could talk about that afterwards. 

“No,” Ahsoka replied. “I have _no idea_ what happened to him! When I left the Jedi, my Master was still just who he had always been - one of the bravest, most loyal Jedi in the Order. And now he’s become a Sith? I can’t tell you why because I don’t understand it myself.”

“I just find it hard to believe someone could change that much,” Leia said. “That there couldn’t have been some sort of warning sign - I’ve met Vader more times than I care to remember. In the Senate, and on the battlefield. He’s a true believer in the Empire and that doesn’t just _happen_.”

Ahsoka shook her head. “There was nothing.” She had gone over her own memories a hundred times looking for just that. Skyguy hadn’t been a perfect Jedi, as Master Kenobi had been quick to remind them both, but his failings were caring about people _too much_. You didn’t go from that to… to torture, to murder, to genocide and _slavery_ which was perhaps the most out-of-character thing of all! “The Dark Side has twisted him beyond recognition. As to how that happened... ” She sighed. “The only thing I can think of is that… Chancellor Palpatine always took a close interest in his doings and I think Anakin looked up to him as a mentor of a sort. None of us suspected that the man was the Sith Lord all the Jedi were looking for. Palpatine must have manipulated him somehow.”

“And now he goes around scooping up other Jedi to turn into Sith!” Hera spat. “I might not be able to use the Force but I’ve seen what the Dark Side of it can do to someone. There’s nothing left of the person they used to be.”

She meant Ezra, of course. The padawan Ahsoka hadn’t known Kanan had taken. If she had, would she have tried to meet them sooner? Hera had mentioned the boy, but she hadn’t mentioned just why he had become a part of Spectre. The first Ahsoka had learned of it was in the aftermath of their flight from Lothal, when Kanan had told her of the Sith Lord he had faced and lost his arm to. They had all thought Ezra dead, executed, and then by the time he had shown up again it was far too late. There had never been any chance to rescue him. 

“You mean the Inquisitors?” Leia asked. 

“Wait, those freaks use the Force too?” Captain Solo said. “I thought they were just… y’know, some kind of special ISB agent.” He gestured vaguely. 

“You never took the aptitude tests, did you?” Ahsoka said to Leia. 

“No,” she replied, frowning. “My father said there was no point; I was going to be a Senator like him. But they’re not just testing your military potential then, are they? They’re looking for something to do with the Force.”

Ahsoka nodded. “The children they take become Inquisitors; Dark Siders. Not true Sith, but close enough. That’s why Bail made sure you weren’t tested.”

“But… I can’t use the Force,” Leia said. 

“Yes, you can,” Ahsoka told her gently. “That’s how I first met Bail Organa, because he needed me to teach you how to hide that fact. Perhaps you’ve forgotten me, but you’ve never forgotten what I taught you - it’s kept you safe from the Emperor and from Vader all this time.”

“I don’t…” Leia frowned. “Or _do_ I remember? There was a voice... you told me to look inside myself, to picture a sun spreading out its warmth until everything all around it was just as warm too. Or like a river flooding its banks to join rivers all around and become a lake… It wasn’t just meditation. And… I’ve never _stopped_ doing it.”

Ahsoka nodded. 

“You said you knew both my fathers,” Leia said. “Does that mean my biological father was a Jedi?”

“Yes.” Now she was going to have to tell another painful truth. One Leia would find hard to accept, given that it was clear how strongly she felt about Vader. Was there any good way to word this? Probably not. “Anakin was your father.”

Almost everyone around the table took a sharp breath in. Their surprise rippled in the Force like a wave. “That’s impossible,” Leia said, her tone flat, disbelieving. Beside her, Captain Solo rolled his eyes. 

“Master Kenobi told me himself,” Ahsoka replied. “He had no reason to lie. Besides, you’re so much like your parents; Padmé’s looks, Anakin’s personality…”

“I am _nothing_ like Vader,” Leia snapped. Her cybernetic hand hit the table with a thump - Ahsoka fought to keep her smile off her face. Like she’d said. Just like Skyguy. But under the circumstances she wasn’t going to belabour the point. “Besides,” Leia continued. “We already know that Vader had a child, but it isn’t me. It’s Luke.”

“Yeah,” Solo added sarcastically, “if you believe any of this escalating avalanche of poodoo.”

 _That_ made Ahsoka frown. She _knew_ she was telling the truth; she had felt it in the Force when Obi-Wan had revealed it to her, but she could sense that this was true too. So… how? There couldn’t have been another pregnancy, but if there had been twins, why hadn’t Master Kenobi told her so? But she already had the answer. For safety. So that if, Force forbid, Vader had chosen to interrogate her for whatever reason, she could not have told him what she did not know. 

A son. What was he like - was he anything like Leia? Like his parents? Her heart ached to know, but this, right now, wasn’t about her. 

“Another? I suppose it’s possible,” she said out loud. “although it doesn’t change the facts. I know it’s been a long time since you reached out to the Force for answers rather than concealment but please, just try it, and you’ll know that I’m not lying to you.”

Slowly, Leia closed her eyes. Took in a deep, steadying breath. The Force shivered, moved like the sluggish shifting of a massive beast starting to waken. Ahsoka waited patiently, feeling Leia reach out. It had been a long time; this wasn’t easy for her. But she could see the moment Leia got it, the moment she could no longer deny the truth. 

Leia muttered an unfamiliar curse under her breath - perhaps Alderaanian. “You’re right,” she said, sounding miserable, defeated. “How can you be right?”

“How can you believe her?” Captain Solo asked, coming within a hair’s-breadth of slamming his palms down on the table. “First Luke, now you… what is it with this Jedi nonsense?”

“Really, nonsense?” Hera spoke up before Ahsoka had a chance to. “I’ve seen Jedi, what they can do… How can you fail to believe in the Force in the face of the evidence of your own eyes?”

“Look, I don’t know what _you’ve_ seen, but a few lightsaber battles and some vague, ominous portents doesn’t do it for me!” Solo replied. 

Sabine looked at him like he’d just turned into a Wookie. “Uh, what about all the somersaulting and telekinesis?” she asked sarcastically. “Or can humans just do that on Corellia?” 

“I’ve never seen any of that on Corellia or anywhere else.” 

[I have though - they’re right Han] Chewbacca growled.

“Well I _haven’t_ Chewie!”

“Han, be quiet,” Leia told him. “This isn’t about convincing you of something the rest of us already know.” Ahsoka felt her pain in the Force, felt it as she tucked it away somewhere deep, close to her heart. It would have been better for her to release it to the Force, but how could she know how to do that when no-one had ever taught her? Leia turned, addressing her again. “So Vader is my father - that doesn’t matter. He’s not my _real_ father; that was Bail Organa. Sharing blood doesn’t mean anything to me and I doubt to him either.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Rex said, speaking for the first time. “General Skywalker’s weak spot was always the people he cared about. He did a lot of foolhardy things on account of them.”

Leia half-laughed. “You can’t believe Darth Vader _cares_ about anyone.” A thought seemed to occur to her. “Or at least not anyone still alive. He certainly doesn’t care about me; he tortured me, he’s the reason for _this._ ” She gestured with her cybernetic hand. 

Ahsoka’s heart ached. Could she really deny Leia’s words, when she believed the same thing? There wasn’t anything left of Skyguy in Vader. The Anakin she knew would never have hurt his own child, but Vader…? Vader who had slaughtered younglings in the heart of the Temple? 

“You said he’s got a son,” Rex continued. “Luke. So he thinks he’s already found his kid, he’s not going to go looking for another. He can’t know about you.”

“That’s a great comfort,” Leia snapped. She subsided slightly, a little of the tension easing out of her body, and smiled very faintly. “Luke though… He’s my brother. No wonder I’ve felt this connection to him ever since we met…”

“Would you tell us about him?” Ahsoka asked. Another of Anakin’s children… Obi-Wan must have taken him somewhere safe, but where? Who had he been living with all these years? What kind of person had he grown up to be? And where was he now, if it was known that Darth Vader was his father? 

“Vader has him,” Leia said. “He captured him recently and despite our best efforts he managed to get away.”

“But he’s alive?” Ahsoka asked.

Leia nodded. “He’s not been physically hurt at least. But mentally… And I bet I know what Vader has planned for him now. He wants to turn him to the Dark Side, make him an Inquisitor like the one he was working with on Vrogas Vas. Some boy called the ‘Twelfth Brother’, if that means anything to you.”

Across from her Hera’s eyes went wide, and so did Zeb’s and Sabine’s. Ahsoka knew just what they were thinking. 

“Ezra,” she said quietly. “That designation… It has to be Ezra.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aphra is given a new mission, Leia has to deal with the truth that's been revealed, clones gossip, and a holocron is finally opened to reveal an unexpected surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's the literary equivalent of the montage? Because all this training needs one.
> 
> This chapter's up a day early this week because I'm going to be busy tomorrow. Next weeks chapter should be back at the usual time. Also, this and next week's chapter are longer than average. Enjoy!

**0 ABY - Bast Castle, Vjun, Nuiri Sector, Outer Rim**

Luke had been left with a lot to think about. His father had been willing to tell him so many stories about his mother, even though he could tell that speaking about her was painful for him. Vader had spared no detail. Before now, Luke had barely had anything to go on when he imagined his mother - no sense of her, no image in his head of the person she had been. That was different now. Now he felt as though he had known her, so vivid were the pictures his father painted with his words. She had been good, kind… his parents had loved each other. 

And Vader hadn’t been able to save her. He had not said it out loud but Luke could tell that was how he felt. There had been dreams - apparently that was something the Force could do, show you what might come to pass in the future - and he had gone to the Jedi with them and they hadn’t been willing to help. Because the Jedi held that the very concept of attachment was wrong. Luke couldn’t agree with that. He knew that the picture he was receiving of the Jedi was biased, that perhaps if he had been able to ask Ben about any of this it wouldn’t be as bad as it sounded, yet… could there ever be a justification for some of the things they had done? Or if there was, then did he really want to understand the philosophy that made it possible? In any case, his father had felt that the only hope he had left was in Sidious. In the Dark Side. And even then it hadn’t been enough. His mother had still died. 

But it made sense now. _Why_ his father had stopped being a Jedi. It didn’t explain why he felt so strongly about the Empire itself, about its warped ‘order’ and lies about peace, or all of the terrible things he had done as Darth Vader. Not that Vader had gone into detail about turning to the Dark Side, about the messy, violent birth of the Empire, but Luke thought he knew enough now to feel around the edges of the true picture. 

The trooper, Gamma, had been waiting for him at the bottom of the turbolift to guide him back through the castle to his rooms, although Luke’s head was too full of thoughts to make conversation with him, or with Ezra either when he got back. Instead Luke went to his bedroom and flopped down onto the soft mattress, ignoring Artoo's questioning beeps, staring up at the ceiling as though the shiny black stone held all the answers. How did he feel about all this? Difficult to say. He needed time, time to get himself in order. To work out what he was going to do next - apart from train, of course. If learning didn’t need him to use the Dark Side then he was happy enough. 

After a while, all the exercise from earlier started to catch up with him, and his eyelids started to droop. Sleep was creeping up on him as warm and fuzzy as a heavy blanket. He roused himself enough to strip out of his clothes and crawl under the covers, telling himself it would just be a quick nap before the evening meal, but before he knew it he was fast asleep. 

\----

Aphra was surprised and pleased to be summoned to meet with Vader the next morning. Luke had spent most of the previous afternoon with his father and had returned seeming relatively happy, so whatever they had talked about must have gone well. Although given the strange mood that Vader had been in earlier yesterday when he’d dropped that proton torpedo about Leia Organa, she hadn’t thought the Boss would have put much thought into plots and plans just yet. She had expected that he would be solely focused on training his son, an area where she would freely admit she couldn’t play much of a role. But this was good! She was going to be doing something useful again!

Lord Vader met her in a set of rooms near the top of the castle spire. Said room was not looking in the best of shape, and Aphra had seen enough of Force-induced damage to be able to put a good guess as to the cause. A little alarming, given how focused and controlled in his anger Vader normally was, but he seemed a little more himself now at least. Certainly she wasn’t going to mention anything even vaguely relating to that topic. 

“Aphra,” Vader said, as she stepped out of the turbolift. “Your own journey was uneventful?”

“The Inquisitor didn’t prove any trouble,” Aphra replied. “And the only thing wrong with this little home away from home is how much fun it isn’t. I mean,” she added quickly, “not that it isn’t a nice place. And there was that little bit of trouble with Triple-Zero and one of your clones, but that got sorted out. Still, it’ll be nice to get back to proper work again.”

“Astute as always.” Aphra’s insides felt all warm and wriggly. Aww, was that a compliment?! Didn’t get one of those every day from the Boss. “I do indeed have a task in mind for you.”

“I live to serve, Lord Vader.”

“This man,” Vader said, handing over a datapad. “He is to be the Captain of my new flagship. It is essential that he be properly informed of the situation he finds himself in.”

“And acts the right way too,” Aphra said, smirking and taking the ‘pad. She scanned it quickly. Imp officer, nothing overly special about him. Had been a pirate-hunter in his younger days - oh, what fun. He’d _love_ her then. She could already imagine the look on his face. But needs must. 

“As my representative, you will need to be appropriately attired,” Vader said, as though reading her mind - he probably was. “You will wear an ISB uniform. I expect you can counterfeit the appropriate codes?”

Urgh, dressing up as an Imp. Wonderful. Well, she wasn’t about to complain. “Don’t worry about the codes,” she said. “I’ll whip something up. How much am I supposed to be telling this guy?”

“It may be instructive to treat this as an interview. Explore his attitudes to the Empire’s current policies, particularly those regarding slavery and the Tarkin Doctrine.”

Aphra nodded. She got it; best check this guy was dissatisfied enough with the way things were right now that he would welcome a change - even if that change meant civil war. “And then I mention the possibility that you might be looking to see things done differently?” she clarified. 

Vader nodded. “Do not mention Luke for now,” he said. “That will come when he is ready to meet these men in person.”

“When he’s all properly Sithly,” Aphra said, winking. “Gotcha. The next few years are going to be interesting.”

“Let us hope we can end it more swiftly than that.” 

Well, Aphra hoped that too, but she didn’t think it was likely to happen. And Lord Vader was planning for the long-term, even if he was trying to be optimistic. If it did come to all out civil war, Aphra knew what side she would be on. What was the Emperor anyway but a wrinkled old man, even if he was a Sith? She had seen what Vader was capable of just on his own, and strength would win out. 

Now to go make sure this Imp was on the winning team as well. 

\-----

**0 ABY - Outpost Umbra, Unknown Regions**

There was a storm raging inside her. Leia had learned too much here - more than she had ever wanted to know. But there was no way to go back. No way to stop knowing the truth - and it was the truth. She couldn’t hide from that. Vader, that _monster_ , was in her blood and bone, too deep to tear out. She had his powers too. Power to kill, crumple throats, to invade minds. Luke was in the same situation, but somehow it seemed less horrifying when it was him. Luke - her _brother_ , apparently, which made so much sense now - was too good of a person to be anything like Vader. She had pitied him the fact of the _thing_ sat perched and malevolent in his family tree but she hadn’t worried for him. Whatever Vader had in store for him, Leia hadn’t thought he would succumb to any of it. 

But herself? When Ahsoka had compared her to Vader, even in the guise of the man he once had been, it had sparked something fearful and afraid inside of her. She had reacted with denial, insistent, but that didn’t change the fact that deep down some part of her wondered how true that might be. Not so much as the person she was now, but what about what she could become? 

Hera and Sabine’s tales of what the Empire did to Force-sensitive children, explaining who this Ezra Bridger was, only fed that self-doubt. If they could somehow change a happy, hopeful teenage boy into a soulless agent of destruction, all because of the Dark Side of the Force, then what could happen to her? Leia knew herself well enough to be aware that traits she used and guided in service of a good and righteous cause could easily be something evil in different circumstances. She could no more deny her own anger than her heart beating in her chest, fed as it was by a rage the Empire’s deeds _more_ than deserved. It had been within her even before Alderaan, and it had only grown since. But if something, some agent outside of her, could somehow take that anger and point it in the wrong direction then… then she could become another Vader, another weapon in the Emperor's hand. 

She could never allow that to happen. 

_I’m stronger than that though,_ she told herself. _The Empire has done so much to me and I have never broken or bowed to them._ But that had been before she appreciated the power of the Dark Side. She had _known_ of it before, in the person of Vader himself stalking the halls of the Senate, in their occasional interactions as part of both their duties, but it had never before been personal. Its threat had been external, but now that threat was inside her.

She let Han share the story of Vrogas Vas and what had happened since with the others, just listening for now. This at least was something Han was good at. He spun tales with all the wit a pirate and smuggler should have, although it had all been dramatic enough to begin with that it needed little embellishment. Certainly it impressed the Spectre crew, and the Jedi Ahsoka listened intently. 

It had been… interesting. Meeting her. The face, her features, had sparked memory that the name alone did not, and then she had claimed to know her and it had slotted into place. Leia remembered the Togruta’s warm presence, her voice soft and laughing as she sat Leia down in the courtyard by the fountain, in the sun and the crisp mountain air, and showed her how to make her mind quiet and still. How to take the power that was within her and diffuse it, to make it too all-encompassing, a part of everything, to be seen. Leia hadn’t understood why it was so important, only that it _was_. They had done it every day until it became a habit so ingrained in her that it had never occurred to her in all these years since to stop. 

Her father - her _real_ father, Bail Organa - had told her stories of the Jedi. Warriors, knights, guardians. She had admired them, had seen that their murder and the lies told about them since were just another one of the Empire’s evils. She had never thought she herself might have the capacity to be one of them, despite the occasional fantasy. But picking up that lightsaber on Nar Shaddaa… it had fit into her hand as though it belonged there. It had felt right - and she’d thought it just because of those old wishes. And now this.

Reaching out to the Force again was like regaining a sense she had long lost. She felt the world around her and her place in it, the bright lights of the sentient beings near her and dimmer ones of the wildlife in the mountains, forests and waters of the planet. A million sparks, a billion, too many to count. 

Luke had been so focused on learning how to be a Jedi. Should she do the same, now that she knew? She was here, in the presence of someone who had once been part of that Order - to _not_ learn wouldn’t make sense. And if she were honest with herself, part of her newfound desire to do so was to put one more barrier between herself, who she was, and Vader.

Han reached the end of his story. Leia turned to Ahsoka, took a sip of Captain Rex’s tea to steady her nerves. 

“Ahsoka,” she said, “I know it’s been many years but… will you train me again? If I’m going to face Vader another time, I need to know how to use the Force. I need to know how to fight him.”

Ahsoka looked away. “I’ll do what I can,” she replied. “but as I am now… there’s a lot I can’t show you.”

Leia nodded. “I understand. We don’t have the luxury of time either - there’s something I _must_ do before three months from now. But if you can at least show me the basics…”

“An Alliance mission?” Ahsoka asked. 

And Leia explained about the ship _Executor_ , and her plans for it.

\----

**0 ABY, Bast Castle, Vjun, Nuiri Sector, Outer Rim**

The topic of Luke Skywalker had been the gossip of choice ever since his arrival in the castle, and by virtue of having spoken to him all of once, Gamma was now the center of attention. He entered the barracks that night to find himself the target of half a dozen interested gazes, and it wasn’t long before someone brought it up - predictably it was Whiplash. 

“So, what’s the kid like?” 

“You think ten minutes of conversation is enough for me to tell you that?” Gamma said, deflecting. He shed his armour and started storing it as per regulations. Commander Dogma was certainly one for regulations. Besides, he was still thinking about that question himself. The General’s son was… hell, he was shiny as the newest Padawan Commander that Gamma had ever seen. Looked like the General had during the war, had the hair, the eyes, but as to character it was difficult to say. Stubborn, yes, but did he have the same wild ideas, the tactical brilliance, the devotion to leading from the front? Was he headstrong, heedless of his own safety? You couldn’t tell any of that just by looking. 

“I think it’s more than most of us have got.” This from Shortstack - so called because he’d lost both legs at the thigh from a rebel’s thermal detonator earning him his discharge from the Stormtrooper Corps. The General had done right by him though; got him a set of replacements that he’d never have been able to afford on retirement pay and brought him here to Vjun. None of them knew what Shortstack’s name had been beforehand, not that it really mattered. Identity was what you said it was.

“He’s humble enough not to want a title, and he asked for my name, not my number.” Gamma shrugged. It would have been enough for any of them to accept a Commander in the old days, even if they hadn’t been related to General Skywalker. Well, Lord Vader now - they respected _his_ right to change his name as much as they would any brother. That didn’t mean shedding a habit drilled into them by Kamino and the war was easy. None of them would ever slip up to his face, however Gamma suspected he wasn’t the only one who still thought of him as their General first. 

“Did you meet his friends?” Whiplash asked. “Slipstream and Diver are guarding their rooms, but apparently they’re not very talkative.”

Gamma shrugged. “No, and I wasn’t about to start prying into his business, unlike _some_ people.”

“One of them’s a smuggler; no better than a pirate!” Whiplash replied. 

“Lord Vader doesn’t exactly object to using any resources available,” Gamma pointed out. “He never has.”

“The other - the boy - he’s an Inquisitor.” This from Sergeant Fox, who had been quiet up til now. Gamma looked at him, not quite seeing his point. 

“So?” he asked. 

“That’s two new Force-users around the place. I have faith in the General’s son of course, but we should be wary around this Inquisitor.”

“He’s no Jedi, sir,” Gamma said, a little hesitantly. They all remembered the assault on the Temple, or… they remembered parts of it. Both during and after, it had all seemed like a bad dream. Or a somehow familiar nightmare. It had been what was necessary, they’d known that at the time. The order would not have been given otherwise. The contingency… something else Kamino had drilled into them, and it had almost been a relief that he had not entirely been in control. Gamma knew he would have hesitated otherwise, and then the Jedi might have… well. Done something terrible - nobody knew entirely what their plans had been. Their own commanders had betrayed them - all of the Jedi had betrayed them except General Skywalker. But the Inquisitors were loyal servants of the Empire, not Jedi. They were trustworthy. 

Probably. 

No-one had actually ever said what had caused the Jedi to turn on the Republic, but everyone had their theories, and Sergeant Fox had been vocal in saying it had something to do with the Force. Gamma thought it had maybe just been the war. The Jedi hadn’t been like them, they weren’t bred for war in the same way. They got damaged by it - clones didn’t, not unless they were defective (although there had been a lot of defective clones after the killing was done and their heads had cleared). Maybe it had all been too much for them and they had thought their grand betrayal was the only way. 

Not that it mattered now. That was ancient history. 

“It could still cause problems,” Sergeant Fox insisted. “All of you keep a close eye on him; that’s an order.”

“Yes sir,” Gamma said, echoed by the others. 

The Sergeant’s suspicion had put them off the topic, and the gossip turned to other things. Gamma kept thinking about it though. What did it mean, that the General had brought his son here? Was he going to be staying on Vjun permanently, or would he soon enough be off with his father, perhaps helping with the missions Lord Vader was assigned? Why had none of them heard about Luke before now? 

Something had changed in the galaxy, something indefinable. Gamma felt on edge in a way he couldn’t put into words. But there was nothing for it but to wait and see how the sabbac cards fell.

\----

In the days that followed, Luke found his schedule starting to take shape. In the mornings he practised lightsaber forms with Ezra under his father’s watchful guidance, and he spent the afternoons in Vader’s rooms. They didn’t speak merely about his mother; although his father could usually be persuaded to share at least one story about her each day. However what Vader seemed to be focused on was what he called Luke’s ‘military education’, which seemed to consist of shoving as much information about tactics and strategy and ship capabilities and Clone War battles into his head as possible until it started dribbling out of his ears. Luke didn’t know why his father was so focused on teaching him this sort of thing all of a sudden, but it almost felt as though they were working to a deadline, one he didn’t know about. He wasn’t fooling himself about why this _particular_ choice of topic given Vader’s plans for him - if he was to take up his place ruling the galaxy at his father’s side, he would need to know things like this. He never intended to do any such thing, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t _interested_ in his father’s lessons. 

Luke did his best to learn. He was beginning to realise that his homeschooling had been basic at best, although from what he had seen of the official Imperial curriculum, that wasn’t much better. He certainly didn’t blame his Aunt and Uncle for that. It wasn’t as though a moisture farmer needed to know Naval formations, or how many TIEs and troopers could be packed into an Imperial-class Star Destroyer. Strictly speaking, he didn’t need to know that information now either, but having it couldn’t hurt. Even if he _had_ wanted to take the Emperor’s place, Luke couldn’t help but think that it would be more helpful to be taught politics - a subject where he wouldn’t even have the first idea how to begin - but he had something of a suspicion that his father wouldn’t be much help there. The scorn with which he had described all politicians, Luke’s mother aside, was a pretty big clue. 

The subject of the Dark Side and the Sith though, was one that hadn’t come up yet. Luke wasn’t sure why. Yes, Vader might have told him he had faith that he would come around of his own accord in the end, but he would have expected… well, he wasn’t sure what. He wasn’t about to go looking a gift bantha in the mouth - he was _happy_ that he wasn’t being pressured to turn away from the Light. 

Still, the lessons gave him a lot to think about, and it wasn’t something he felt he could really talk to Ezra or Aphra about. Instead he spoke to Artoo every night in his bedroom, pouring out his doubts, his hopes, his frustrations. Artoo was a good listener, and he would never judge him for anything. 

One particular afternoon, Luke arrived in his father’s quarters to find him still meditating, and not in his hyperbaric chambers either but in what he had come to think of as the ‘command center’, a room with an expansive holotable at the center of it and a whole series of computers and data storage towers all around the walls. It was only at first that Vader appeared to be meditating; when Luke looked closer he saw that in fact his father was focused on a strange cube of filigreed metal that lay cupped in both his hands on the table in front of him. No, wait, more than a cube - a holocron. He only hadn’t recognised it at first because of the colour. It took a moment for his father to register his arrival, which was very unlike him. Luke felt his sudden surprise and concern through their link - what Vader had eventually explained to him was their familial bond. 

“Luke,” his father said in greeting, and started to move to put the holocron away. 

“What is that?” Luke asked, now very curious. Why would the holocron be dark, almost red, rather than the familiar blue, and why would his father just be sitting there staring at it, rather than opening it? 

“Nothing that need concern you,” Vader replied. 

“It’s a holocron though, isn’t it.”

“Correct.” Perhaps sensing Luke’s deep curiosity, he lifted the holocron up again from where he had been about to secrete it in a pocket of his belt and placed it carefully on the table. Luke took a step forwards to get a better look at it, but his father lifted up a hand to warn him away. “It is a Sith holocron,” he explained. “Thus far I have not detected any traps, but that does not mean that such do not exist.”

“Is that… common, for Sith holocrons?” Luke asked. He remembered what Ezra had told him about Sith strongholds like Bast Castle. So far when he and the Inquisitor had gone around exploring the building they hadn’t seen any signs of danger, but equally there were many locked doors that they hadn’t been able to get through - that it wouldn’t be _wise_ to go through, probably. Who knew what might be lurking behind them? 

Vader nodded. “It is proving difficult in other ways. It will not open.”

“Huh.” It didn’t look like much, just sitting there. Luke would have expected it to feel strongly of the Dark Side - or maybe it did and he just couldn’t detect it through the constant fog of darkness that filled the castle. He reached out his senses towards it cautiously, aware of what his father had said about traps. It didn’t feel like much of anything at all, if he was honest. How had it felt opening Phin-Law Wo’s holocron..? A holocron he’d been forced to leave behind with the rest of his things on Vrogas Vas. Just pressing with the Force…

Beneath the silver metal, parts of the crystal suddenly glowed blue. 

His father’s surprise leapt through their bond like an electric shock. Luke let go of the Force, startled, and the glow subsided. What… what had just happened there? Had he activated something? 

“It reacts to the Light Side as well,” Vader said quietly, almost to himself. 

“So it _isn’t_ Sith?” Luke asked. 

“We shall see. Reach out again.”

Luke did as he was told, too curious to do otherwise. The Force answered his call, reaching through the oily blanket of the Dark Side, and caressing the crystal in front of him. _Wake up,_ it told it. _Open for me_. As he did so, he felt Vader act as well, and the Dark Side slithered in, winding around his own use of the Force, speaking of power, of might, of the _right_ to know what was within. Slowly, the filigree shifted, seeming to flow aside like water. The crystal rose up into the air, turning and twisting into a new configuration. A figure rose up from the wan, pale light it threw. 

It looked at first like a female human, but there were certain subtle oddities about her features that made Luke realise she must be from a particularly humanoid species, albeit one he didn’t recognise. She wore long, dark robes - probably black, although the purplish wash of the hologram made it hard to tell. She looked between the two of them, the corners of her mouth turning up a little with the hint of a smile, and spoke. The language wasn’t one Luke recognised, nor his father either, it appeared, as he made no reply. The hologram shook her head and tried again in a different tongue. Vader said something back. 

“Galactic Basic then,” the woman said. “The boy is your apprentice?”

“He is not your concern,” his father said in a dangerous tone. “You will address me, not him.”

“Worried I’ll lead him astray?” the holocron asked, voice smooth as flowing water. 

“ _I_ am overseeing his education. What is your name, holocron?”

The woman turned her head to give Luke a brief look, ignoring the question. He couldn’t get a read on her expression, and of course she was a holocron; he couldn’t sense what she might be thinking through the Force. “If he _is_ your student, perhaps you are less a Sith than I thought,” she said. 

His father’s anger, on the other hand, could be felt loud and clear. “I am a Lord of the Sith,” he said sharply. “”How I train my apprentices is irrelevant!”

“When last I was opened there were precious few Sith left in the galaxy,” the holocron replied. “Those that survived the war were being hunted down by the tattered remnants of the Jedi Order. I am curious to know how you remain alive - and how you have come to have my holocron in your possession.”

“Of which war do you speak?” Vader asked. “There have been many.”

“The war of Exar Kun and Ulic Kel-Droma.”

That didn’t mean anything at all to Luke, although that wasn’t a great surprise since none of the history he’d been taught went back any further than the run-up to the Clone Wars, but it clearly meant something to his father. “It has been many thousands of years since the Great Sith War,” Vader said, after a moment’s pause in which Luke clearly felt the flare of his satisfaction through their familial bond. “The Jedi Order is no more. The Sith rule the galaxy now.”

“Then indeed, much has changed,” the woman said - without any of the pleasure that Luke would have expected from an apparent Sith. If she really was a Sith. Things didn’t entirely make sense here. “I suppose that this holocron was recovered as spoils of war?”

“The temple on Vrogas Vas had long lain fallow even before the fall of the Order,” Vader said. “It was the will of the Force that you were found. In the way of the Sith it shall soon be time for me to kill my Master and take his place, and as for you, _you_ will help me do it.”

“Shall I now?” the holocron said, again in that soft, silky tone. “What makes you think you are worthy of teaching of _any_ kind?”

“I opened you, did I not,” Vader pointed out.

“Not alone.”

“A curious truth. The Light Side, and the Dark. Tell me holocron, are you even truly a Sith?”

Luke didn’t have the best view of the woman’s face from where he stood, but he didn’t need to to see her sneer. “I am Alkamar of the Arkanii, Seer of Truth, Master of the Moon-Path. I am neither Sith or Jedi, nor would I wish to follow either of their blinkered ways. If this is not to your liking, _Sith_ , then you may certainly _try_ to destroy me.”

Luke spoke before he could think better of it. “Arkanii… do you mean you’re from Arkanis?”

Alkamar turned to look at him again. “Partially correct, young student. That sector is where my people fled in a time that is beyond the mists of memory, and its systems are where we built our home for thousands of years.”

“Do not speak to him!” Vader snapped. 

“Father!” Luke replied, with more than an edge of anger. Now he was desperately curious. Not only that this woman had been from the same sector as him, as his father, which was surely no coincidence when the Force was involved, but also because this might be the chance he had been hoping for to find another path, another way of using the Force. Another tradition, one the Jedi had long ago suppressed just like Ezra had told him. “I want to talk to her!”

“Your son is more worthy of my teachings than you, Sith,” Alkamar said, sounding amused. “As I was saying; I do not know what led the Jedi to the Arkanis sector in the aftermath of their war with the Sith, for my true self passed into the Force millennia before that event, but their coming heralded our end, leaving only this holocron behind as guidance. ”

“Guidance you will _not_ be passing on,” Vader said, reaching out with the Force and scooping the holocron up into the air. Luke wasn’t sure if you could force a holocron closed, but his father was certainly about to try it. 

“Father, she might not be a Sith, but she’s not a Jedi either!” he said quickly. “What would be the harm in letting me learn from her?”

“Bad habits at the very least,” his father replied. 

“Aren’t you curious, Son of the Suns?” Alkamar purred. Vader stopped, struck suddenly motionless. 

“Why did you call me that,” he said in a vicious whisper. 

“A lucky guess,” the holocron replied. “More interesting is how _you_ reacted to it. It seems some remnant of us is left in our domain after all. You were born of Tatooine. warlord. Perhaps there is hope for you yet.”

“There is nothing on Tatooine but the desert,” Vader said. “Certainly nothing of your people, whoever they were.”

“And yet you answer to a rank that has apparently not been heard in thousands of years.”

“I do not claim that title,” Vader replied. “It is only an old legend told by slaves. It has nothing to do with a prophecy I have long since fulfilled.”

“And what prophecy might that be?” the woman asked. 

His father was clearly reluctant to speak of it, perhaps because of Luke’s presence. But perhaps he felt that Luke should know of it all the same, or perhaps he thought it would end this conversation with Alkamar sooner. “The Chosen One who will bring balance to the Force,” he said. “Which I have fulfilled by hunting down all the Jedi that remain.”

A Sith prophecy, then? Luke didn’t know much about even the mere concept of predicting the future although he was aware of it as something that was, in theory, possible with the help of the Force. Still he wanted to ask more, to ask where his father had first heard of this prophecy, why he was so sure it was about him, what ‘balance’ even meant… and how much of a role it had played in the destruction of the Jedi. But this wasn’t the right time. 

“That would not be balance unless you also slew the rest of the Sith,” Alkamar said, looking unimpressed. 

“What do _you_ know of balance?” Vader replied.

“To be Arkanii is to seek balance in all things!” the holocron said, sharply and insistently. “As the suns balance the moons, as night balances day, as wrath is tempered by compassion and hate by love! You Sith, you think power is the only thing that matters, but you never give a thought as to what power is for. You forget your own creed, just as the Jedi have.”

“You know nothing,” Vader said, anger flaring all around him, drawing the Dark Side with it. The purple light of the holocron flickered. “I have no need to justify myself to you.”

“No,” Alkamar said, “but to your son? If you are devoted to power like the Sith you say you are, he would not have been able to help you open this holocron! He would be a Sith too.”

Luke chose that moment to speak. “It’s my own decision not to be a Sith. My father can’t force me to change my mind.”

The holocron gave him a look of pity. “Oh, young student, he certainly _could_. But he too has made a decision.”

“He is my _son_!” Vader snarled. The fury Luke felt through their bond was protective, his father enraged at the very thought he might do something to harm him, to hurt him. He knew that he shouldn’t feel warmed by his father’s anger, but he could recognise what underpinned that emotion. His father loved him, even if he only knew rather daunting ways to express it. 

The Arkanii woman smiled. “And that is my point. There is something that matters more to you than power. Family. It is my experience of the Sith that they see family as nothing more than tools or weapons to cement their own power and control. You do not follow the philosophy of the Sith and thus, there is hope for you yet.”

Something in amongst everything that Alkamar was saying must have struck some kind of chord in his father, because Luke was sure he would have destroyed the holocron by now otherwise. It was only metal and crystal - either the Force or sheer brute strength could break it apart. But he had let it be. He was continuing to argue with it. And after all hadn’t Luke seen for himself that there was still plenty of Anakin Skywalker left in Darth Vader - he might have changed over the years but he was still the same man. He still had the potential for good - his love for Luke, for Padmé, showed that. If Luke could find some other path, be it the one these Arkanii had followed or something entirely different, could he show his father that he didn’t _need_ the power of the Dark Side to defeat the Emperor? 

Nothing could erase what his father had done in the past, or make up for it, but what if he could be a force for good in the galaxy? What if they both could be? If family was more important than power then surely Luke could make his father see that there was no point in ruling the galaxy, that the Rebellion had the right idea of it. After all, hadn’t both he and Leia been part of the Alliance? Hadn’t his mother always stood up for democracy? 

But that was politics, not the Force. Luke couldn’t say he truly understood the Dark Side or the Light, or even if these were the only ways of looking at the Force. If the Jedi could use the Light Side and do evil acts, then surely his father could join the fight for good without also being persuaded to give up the Dark Side? Couldn’t he? If it was just the ideology of the Sith holding him back… But was he so sure about that? Luke knew what the Dark Side felt like, how it gravitated to negative emotions almost as though it fed on them. 

There was so much he didn’t know. How could he make any kind of plan and expect it not to blow up in his face if he didn’t know what he was doing? 

Alkamar was speaking. “You will not force your child to walk the path of the Sith,” she said. “And if the Jedi are dead, he certainly won’t be learning anything from them. Who else is there to help teach him but me?” 

“Luke will change his mind in time,” Vader insisted. “He must become powerful enough that we can defeat my Master together and only the Dark Side can give him that.”

“My calling was the Moons, not the Suns, but that doesn’t mean I am ignorant of the ways of war,” Alkamar said. “I believe I can still be of some assistance.”

Luke felt his father hesitate. He spoke up, hoping he might be able to sway the decision. “I want to learn from her, Father. And if you’re so sure that I will eventually chose the ways of the Sith, then perhaps this will be just a stepping stone on that path.” Obviously he didn’t believe that himself, but Vader might.

Luke could feel his father glaring at him from under the mask, but without heat or any kind of anger. He was simply annoyed at how little ability he had to refuse his own son’s requests. “Very well,” he said. “But I shall be present for this _teaching_.”

Luke nodded, perfectly happy with this. This was the opportunity he’d been waiting for!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things you want to see more of? Things you want to see less of? Let me know. Equally warnings - tell me if you think I should have tagged something.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Piett has an uncomfortable job interview, Vader is ambivalent, and Alkamar talks theology.

**0 ABY - ISD- _Accuser_ , running patrol in the Calamari Sector**

It seemed he was fated to take part in one disastrous campaign after another at this point, Captain Piett thought to himself. He stood on the bridge of _Accuser_ , staring out into space. First Turkana, and no matter that he had received a commendation for snatching a stalemate from the jaws of defeat, it had still been a disaster, and now this mess at Dac. In the aftermath of the Death Star’s destruction the planet had officially declared itself for the Rebellion, and although there had been suspicion that they were supplying the rebels with ships for years, this now gave the rebels access to the entirety of Mon Calamari’s extensive shipyards. _Accuser_ had been part of the task-force sent to occupy and subdue the planet, but their strike had been intercepted by a rebel fleet. Of six Star Destroyers and the same number of cruisers, only _Accuser_ had managed to escape in fully spaceworthy condition.

It all led back to the Death Star, in his mind. Consolidating so many of the Empire resources into one superweapon had never been a wise move in his eyes, but he could understand the reasoning behind it. However all that meant was that the propaganda victory had been all the higher when the rebels had destroyed it, a victory which had only spread the seeds of rebellion far and wide. Now the Imperial Navy was paying the price for that. 

So the Navy couldn’t risk striking at Dac directly. That left only their attempt to weaken the sector as a whole, to chip away at the planet’s trade base, its resources. A kind of sector-wide blockade. It was not a _good_ tactic, but it was the only one they had right now. 

The Empire could not continue on like this. Every defeat only made them seem weaker, gave more succor and strength to their enemies. Little by little, order would slip away, to be replaced by chaos. _Something_ needed to change. 

At his shoulder, his first officer Lieutenant Tycho coughed lightly to get his attention. “Sir, our scanners have picked up a shuttle coming out of hyperspace.”

“One of ours?”

“Yes sir. The ident codes it has sent us are ISB, sir.”

Just what he needed. A political officer barging onto his ship, no doubt full of pointed questions about his recent actions. Perhaps it had struck someone somewhere as odd that he had been as successful as he had in his last two military engagements. There was no great mystery to it; he was actually good at his job, unlike some officers out there. Officers who had risen to command Star Destroyers because of their noble names, their polished Core World accents, the money they slipped into the right pockets. But none of that could save them when it came to the clash of capital ships, the dance of battle. 

“Send a squadron to escort the shuttle to hanger two,” Piett ordered. “And a detachment of stormtroopers for the welcoming party.” Tycho saluted and spun on his heel. Piett checked his own reflection in the transparisteel pane in front of him, and gave his jacket a swift tug of adjustment although it didn’t truly need it. Best to see this agent on board himself. If this was something routine, they would have been given word that they were coming, but this was entirely out of the blue. Not a good sign. 

He rode the turbolift down to the hanger bay and watched as the shuttle passed through the magnetic shield barrier, wings folding up gracefully and landing gear descending to allow it to settle lightly on deck. The ramp hissed open and the agent descended. She was of below-average height, dark hair and eyes, reasonably good-looking with the hint of a smirk twisting her lips. She surveyed the two rows of troopers awaiting her without much of a reaction, and marched past them all to where Piett was waiting for her. 

“Agent Aphra,” she said, with a sloppy salute. There was something off about her. Something about the way she wore her uniform, as though she wasn’t yet used to it. Piett had seen enough greenhorns to know what that looked like - but it would make no sense to send a junior agent unaccompanied on a job like this. 

“Captain Firmus Piett, of the ISD- _Accuser_ ,” he replied. “An unexpected surprise.”

“Of course,” Agent Aphra said, with what he could only describe as an unprofessional grin. The smirk could have been excused as arrogance not unusual in the ISB, but this was the expression of someone who knew something you didn’t and was enjoying the experience far too much. “There wouldn’t be much point if you knew I was coming.”

Piett stiffened. What kind of game was he caught up in here? It wasn’t unknown for Moffs or Admirals or other persons of importance and influence to use the ISB as a kind of blunt instrument against their enemies, and it was no secret that Piett was not well-liked. He was only ‘Outer Rim trash’, after all. Had someone thought he was getting too big for his boots? 

“Come on then Captain,” Agent Aphra said. “Show me where we can have a private conversation on this ship.”

Piett nodded. His own quarters would be too personal, the bridge too open, but there were offices adjacent to the bridge for strategic and tactical discussion which would serve. The turbolift ride back up the conning tower was awkward to say the least. The ISB agent watched everything they passed with keen, appraising eyes. Nor did the tension recede once he had ushered her into an appropriate room and they had both taken a seat. 

“Is this conversation being monitored?” Aphra asked him. 

“Of course,” Piett replied. “All areas of the ship are wired for visual and sound recording aside from my own personal cabin. If you require access to those records…”

The agent waved a hand dismissively. “No - I need to shut that monitoring off. What I have to say isn’t something either of us will want recorded.”

“The systems are set up so that you would need clearance even _I_ don’t have to do that,” Piett told her - a fact she should already know. 

Agent Aphra pulled a code cylinder from its pocket. “Oh, I have the authority,” she said. “Which is _why_ this is top secret.”

Piett took the cylinder as if it might bite him - he certainly felt that way. This wasn’t an enemy trying to get him in hot water with ISB, this was something much more serious. He used the interface panel for the holotable to call up the access for security and slid the cylinder into place. It went home with a quiet click, and there it was, the whole system open in front of him. Sweat trickling down his spine, he disabled the cameras and mics in this room. 

He hadn’t felt nervousness like this… _ever_ , probably. Not even before his Academy exams, or on any of his missions as part of the Axxilan anti-pirate fleet. Compared to politics, pirates were simple! 

“So,” Aphra said, slapping the table. “I should say that I’m not here on official ISB business. I’m here on behalf of Lord Vader.”

Whatever Piett might have been about to say stuck in his throat. He swallowed hard. None of the military actions in his career had involved Darth Vader but he had heard all the stories, the gossip. He’d seen all of COMPNOR’s propaganda holos. What possible interest could Vader have in someone like him? 

“First things first,” Vader’s agent said. “Have you heard anything about what’s being built at Fondor?”

Fear never tended to fog Piett’s thoughts, but spurred them to action instead. It let him call up the memory without much trouble. “Something I shouldn’t know about,” he said. “But I’ve heard rumours just like everybody else. A ship prototype.”

“ _Executor_ ,” Aphra said with relish. “Lord Vader’s baby - nineteen kilometers of Imperial might.”

“Nineteen…” Even after the Death Star, the scale was breathtaking. 

“You probably won’t have been made aware of this yet,” Aphra continued, “but Lord Vader picked you from his shortlist to be its Captain. So think of this as your job interview.”

There were a lot of things Piett might have said, under different circumstances. Objections he might have made. But this was not the kind of offer one refused, nor would it be a posting where failure was tolerated. Even if he doubted his capabilities to manage a ship of that magnitude, all it meant was that he would have to learn fast - and he was _certainly_ capable of that. Nor could he deny the core of ambition that he kept tucked close to his heart. He straightened in his seat and locked gazes with the agent opposite him. If this was to be an interview, then he meant to give a good showing of it.

“Let’s begin.”`

\----

**0 ABY - Bast Castle, Vjun, Nuiri Sector, Outer Rim**

The holocron had not been what he was expecting. Vader doubted his own wisdom in allowing Luke access to it, but he also trusted in his son’s ability to discern truth from lies. He had been quick enough to accept that the Jedi had misled him when this was explained, and he now knew better than to trust what he was told so easily. His son would not allow himself to be misguided by any falsehoods or half-truths this force-user might attempt. And there was some merit in the argument that the teachings might be of some use, although a poor second to the path of the Sith. Even the Jedi had accepted the Sith as their betters; it was why they had been so afraid of them in a way they were not of other force traditions, such as the Dathomiri Nightsisters. 

The history of the galaxy was the history of the fight between Jedi and Sith. If another way of using the Force had true merit, then it would have survived the test of years. But none had. 

These Arkanii… He might have doubted the woman’s claim at first, but she knew the name of that old legend, the Son of Suns, and did those legends not also speak of a time before the human settlers came to Tatooine, a time before Depur. As it had been before, so would it be again, when the Son of Suns returned, when the eggs of the Dragon hatched, when chains would be broken and Depur in all their forms defeated and brought low… He had believed that once, as an innocent child. He had listened to his mother tell him the tales in the covering dark of night, and he had thought he might enact that myth once he became a Jedi, once he had _power_ …

It struck him that once Sidious was dead, once his son was Emperor, that dream could come to pass. All his Master’s promises of ending slavery on the Outer Rim, constantly deferred because they did not have peace, because destroying the Rebellion must come first, could finally be fulfilled. 

So if it would bring that day closer, let his son learn from the holocron. Vader would be present to make sure Alkamar did not lead Luke astray, and he would confess to his own curiosity about her ways, if only because of the connection to the world of his birth. The passage of time also weighed on his mind - it could not be much longer before Tagge contacted him with orders, and he would have to leave Vjun. It he was no longer present to continue Luke’s training, it would fall to the Twelfth Brother and to his clone troopers - and now perhaps to the holocron. 

It would have to be enough. 

\----

Luke had seemed strangely excited when he’d come back from his lessons with Lord Vader last night. Ezra had asked him about it over dinner, but Luke had only smiled and said he probably shouldn’t talk about it just yet. Ezra hadn’t sensed any particular impression of the Dark Side from his friend, so he didn’t think that it was because Luke had finally given in to persuasion and done the sensible thing, but he couldn’t think of much else that would make him react like this. Certainly not stories about his parents from when his mother had still been alive - those made him a sort of mix of happy and sad (and he still wasn’t any better at shielding his feelings which could be Force-damned distracting) - and military lessons wouldn’t do it either. 

So what? Ezra was used to people having secrets, but he was an Inquisitor - they weren’t meant to have secrets from _him_! 

That same faint thrum of energy was still humming underneath Luke’s skin when they met in the salle that morning. Ezra did his best to ignore it and focus on what they were meant to be doing. Luke was improving far more rapidly than he’d had any reason to expect. _He_ certainly hadn’t been so quick a learner when Kanan… but that was a dangerous thought. He shoved it away. Besides, most of his own teaching had been on Mustafar, both the traditional forms and the modified ones for the spinning Inquisitorial blades. 

Ezra liked to think he was more than competent in lightsaber combat, but equally it _had_ been a few years since he had last fought anyone wielding a saber. That wasn’t exactly common in the galaxy anymore, and he was a little out of practise. Vader’s watchful eye had only made things worse - the Sith Lord had been there every day after the first one, and then he’d started to offer corrections. Widen your stance a little, bring your arm up more at the elbow, watch your footwork… things like that. He had just about gotten used to it to the point where it didn’t bother him anymore, but he wouldn't call it _comfortable_. Of course, Vader had taught him before at the very end of his training, but that had been rote, Ezra himself nothing special and thus deserving of no special attention. He’d put in a good enough showing against Vader in the final exam not to die, and that had been all that mattered. 

Not so much now. Ezra was sure Lord Vader was only bothering because he wanted his son’s sparring partner to be up to scratch, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t as grateful as he was scared by the personal attention. 

Having worked through all of Shii-Cho, they had now moved on to Makashi, the classical dueling form emphasised by the Inquisitorius. Ezra might have thought it wiser to stay on Form I for a bit longer, running through the katas until they had become muscle memory, but strangely Luke didn’t seem to need it. He seemed to be able to observe a move or series of moves and almost immediately incorporate it into his own practise. Whether this was just the way his mind worked or some instinctive use of the Force that Ezra wasn’t familiar with was uncertain, but in practise irrelevant. What mattered was that Luke was moving forward in leaps and bounds - a natural with a blade.

What would have happened, Ezra thought to himself, if the last Jedi had actually trained him properly? If Kenobi had started teaching him as the Order did their stolen Padawans, if he’d had fifteen years of _this_. Ezra might still be alive, because it wasn’t as though they had ever actually come to blows on Vrogas Vas, but what about when Lord Vader had found them in the Temple? Before he’d had a chance to tell Luke the truth. If he hadn’t been willing to hurt his son… It seemed almost sacrilegious to think of it, but the possibility was there. The final weapon of the Jedi might have committed the patricide Kenobi had set him up for. 

But it was silly to think about could-have-beens. That hadn’t happened. The Jedi had been too afraid of Luke’s potential to risk training him, and now he was where he should be. 

Predictably, Luke was getting a good handle on Form II, and Ezra worked him through the katas, building on their speed. From time to time Lord Vader would call out advice, his deep baritone carrying well enough that he barely had to raise his voice. Sometimes that correction would come with the brief brush of the Force nudging limbs or spine into a more proper alignment. By lunchtime Ezra was sweating as hard as Luke. 

Lord Vader left them alone to get cleaned up and eat, as was usual for him. Ezra decided to take the opportunity to ask again about whatever secret Luke was keeping under wraps.

“I can’t tell you now anymore than I could last night!” Luke said, grinning. The exercise of saber practise seemed to put him in a good mood. The Force eddied around him in slow swirls, turbulence of Luke’s light in the Dark Side like a river moving against an immovable rock. But even stone could be worn away in time, Ezra thought to himself. 

“Not even a hint?” Ezra asked.

“I would need to ask my father’s permission,” Luke explained. 

Ezra nodded. _That,_ he could accept. He was on his last chance with Lord Vader - he had no intention of pushing his luck for the sake of simple curiosity. 

“Although I think it’s right that you _ought_ to know,” Luke continued. “But my father doesn’t trust you - well, I don’t think he really trusts _anyone_ aside maybe from his soldiers here. I think I can persuade him though.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to.”

“You don’t need to,” Luke said. “I was going to do it anyway.”

This was probably going to get him into more trouble, but Ezra couldn’t bring himself to care very much. He’d been neck deep in trouble since arriving on Vrogas Vas and he wasn’t about to be out of it… ever. Having Luke as a friend just meant this sort of thing happened. He could live with that.

“I’ll see how things go this afternoon,” Luke continued. “Then I’ll ask.”

This should be interesting.

\----

Luke had expected them to open the holocron for the second time in the same tactical room where he’d been having his other lessons, but instead his father met him at the bottom of the spire’s turbolift. Luke blinked in surprise at the sight of him standing there - or perhaps looming was a better word for what Vader usually did. 

“We require a meditation chamber,” his father said as Luke approached. 

“And yours is inside that hyperbaric room,” Luke said, taking his meaning. “So… I guess there are other ones in the castle somewhere?”

His father nodded. “You and the Twelfth Brother have been mediating in your quarters. After I show you how to safely enter this chamber, you both have my permission to use it.”

That statement seemed too generous not to be ever so slightly a trap. Luke looked at his father with sudden suspicion.”I take it this chamber is attuned to the Dark Side?”

“Correct.” Vader didn’t seem put out that he had guessed that fact. 

“I’ll pass then, thanks. Although Ezra should know about it, I guess.” That wasn’t the only thing Ezra should know about, but he wouldn’t bring that up yet.

His father strode off down the corridor, leaving Luke to have to jog a little to keep up; at least until Vader subtly adjusted his stride to accommodate Luke’s shorter legs. “You use the Inquisitor’s name too freely,” he said, in the same chiding tone that he used to correct Luke’s saber technique. “It belongs to an old life long forsaken.” 

“Yeah, about that…” Luke had only recently been giving this some thought - it had struck him when he remembered what Aphra had told him about the Inquisitorius on Vrogas Vas. “How is what the Inquisitorius does any different to the Jedi? As far as I can see they’re both stealing children from their parents in order to teach them about the Force! I mean, it certainly doesn’t sound like the Empire gives anyone a choice in the matter.”

“There are still Jedi and Jedi artefacts out there in the galaxy,” his father replied. “The Inquisitorius is necessary to eliminate those threats to peace and order. I understand your concerns, my son, but consider that these recruits are not taken until their early teens. They have already been given the gift of a childhood with their families, which is more than the Jedi ever gave anyone.”

“Are those the Emperor’s words again?” Luke asked bitterly. 

“If Sidious were not wise, he would not have risen to the position of power that he has,” Vader told him. “But he does not know _everything_.”

“It isn’t _wisdom_ that comes out of his mouth, it’s poison and lies!”

His father made no reply to that, but Luke could sense his conflict. He clearly couldn’t believe _everything_ that Sidious did otherwise he would never have made this decision to try and kill him - albeit with Luke’s help. It wasn’t about power anyway. It never had been from what Luke had been able to piece together. Anakin had become Vader because of Padmé; he’d wanted the power of the Dark Side not for its own sake but to help her, although he still hadn’t said why. And he did want what was best for the galaxy, it was only that he had a horrifying idea of how that ought to be achieved. Was that because of the Emperor? Had _he_ made Vader think the Empire was the only way?

Luke followed his father through the castle until they stopped at a locked door not too far away from the training salle. It was one that he and Ezra had already taken note of during their explorations, but of course they had never tried to enter it. For one thing there was no obvious way to open it; no control pad, no handle, nothing but a smooth sheer surface.

“Observe closely,” Vader said. He lifted a hand to the door and placed the splayed tips of his fingers carefully on an area that looked identical to everywhere else. But when he pressed, the five contact points slid inwards with an audible click. Then he stepped back and called the Force, lifting the slab of metal upwards with the grinding shriek of metal on metal. Not exactly well maintained, obviously. 

Vader went inside. Luke followed cautiously. It was too dark inside to make anything out, at least until his father touched a control on the wall and brought up a soft red light from the walls. A large pyramidal space opened out in front of them, a few steps leading down into it. There were a number of wide, low chairs set in a circle in the middle of the room, with an octagonal pillar in the very center that reached almost from floor to where the walls met in a point, aside from about a half a foot gap at roughly Luke’s head height. A thin layer of dust covered everything. 

The Dark Side did seem… more alive here. More attentive, almost. Something about it was pricking up its ears, waiting coiled and ready to move at the slightest command. Luke felt as though he was being watched. 

His father descended the steps into the room and went to the central pillar, where he brushed the dust clear and put the holocron into the space that, as Luke looked at it, seemed designed for the purpose. “Be seated, young one,” he said to Luke, gesturing to one of the chairs. 

Luke did as he’d been told. The chair was too low for it to feel comfortable just stretching his legs out in front of him. He watched what his father was doing, and mimicked his posture; legs crossed at mid-calf, back straight, hands resting on knees. Vader nodded in approval, then reached out with the Force towards the holocron. Luke did likewise - this time the glow of it opening came more swiftly, and the purple light seemed stronger. 

“What a _lovely_ place this is,” Alkamar sneered, as her form rose up from the crystal. 

“It will serve our purposes,” Vader told her. The holocron did not seem to feel like arguing about it - not right now at least. 

“So my student,” she said, turning to look Luke up and down. “Luke, is it not. You know the meaning of your name?”

“Of course,” Luke replied. Aunt Beru had made sure of that. “It means freedom on Tatooine.” Not exactly the safest name to have on his home planet, but as remote as they had been on the farm he had managed to stay out of any trouble relating to it. The Hutts might not know exactly what that word meant from the mouths of their slaves, but they knew enough not to like it.

“And on Tatooine, how are the first lessons taught?”

“Stories,” Luke replied. “Although isn’t that the same everywhere?”

Alkamar laughed. “There is a reason for that. A story is better understood than a lesson.”

Vader spoke. “A story is not a truth.”

“Don’t lie to yourself,” Alkamar replied. “One can hold many truths without being of itself a thing that happened. I start with a story - although whether it is _true_ I will let you both judge for yourselves. It is a story of how the universe itself began.”

“Mythology,” Vader said, with obvious disapproval. Luke ignored him. He wanted to hear this properly. 

“Before there was anything, there was the Force,” Alkamar said. “Sleeping, and dreaming, for you see the Force was very alone. But in its dreams it saw how that could be changed. It dreamed a dream of existence, of matter, of atoms, planets, stars, galaxies - and then it woke up.

“And now there was something other than itself. Yet the Force was still in everything, a part of everything. It felt when the first life stirred on the first world, and it felt itself within the life and knew it was no longer alone. Life grew, multiplied, changed, spread. Time passed, but what did that mean to the Force? These tiny lives were almost too fast for it follow, but as they became more complex, so they gained more of its attention. Each living thing was a child of the Force, and it loved them. It desired their happiness - and as some of these little lives gained some measure of sapience, that began to _mean_ something. 

“But the Force itself was too big. Such vastness cannot comprehend even so small a span as a dozen dozen years. So the Force made of itself emissaries, aspects, mirrors, to go forth and learn the desires of its children. To offer help, if it was asked. Two of these emissaries were the sisters known as Ashla and Bogan.”

Vader made a noise of utter disgust. The anger Luke felt from him seemed almost… personal. “This is heresy.”

“Heresy to whom,” Alkamar asked him, not missing a beat. Clearly she had been expecting an interruption. “The Jedi or the Sith? You are very dogmatic for a child of the desert, warlord.”

“There is the Light Side and the Dark. That is all,” Vader replied.

“If you ask for something by name, do not be so surprised if you receive no more than what you asked for,” the holocron said. 

Luke took the chance, and spoke up. “So… the Force isn’t just the Light and the Dark? There are other ways of using it?”

“You have already made the first steps on that road, my student,” the Arkanii told him. “When you call on the Force you do not do so as a Jedi would, even though you ask for Light.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” Luke confessed. “It feels the same as what Ben Kenobi was using, or what I felt in the temple on Vrogas Vas.”

“It is true that over millennia Ashla and Bogan have only grown, while other aspects have withered away. We have the Jedi and the Sith to thank for that. But if you will permit me to continue the tale...”

Luke looked at his father. After a moment Vader gave a short nod. “I am curious to hear what further lies you intend to spin,” he said. Luke supposed he shouldn’t have expected his father to be any less stubborn than he himself was - apparently that was a Skywalker trait.

“The two sisters went out into the world to find the children of the Force,” Alkamar said. “They found many of them, and no two were alike in the desires of their hearts. ‘What shall we do?’ the sisters asked each other. ‘How can we help them like this?’. But there was no good answer to that question. They decided that only the creatures themselves knew how to achieve their desires, and thus they would give help wherever it was asked, without ever holding anything back. 

“At first the children of the Force called on both sisters equally, but even then they started to ask them for different things. Of Ashla they asked peace, stillness. Of Bogan they asked aggression, passion. Yet still there was balance, for a time. It did not last. Some hearts have no balance in them. Some hearts derive their happiness from the suffering of others. One cannot poison the Force itself, but to poison an aspect merely requires time, and the history of the galaxy is long. So very slowly, Bogan changed. 

“It is said that in those far-off times, the Jedi were not yet the Jedi they became. They were balanced, they allowed their emotions. They used the Force in many aspects. Within their numbers there were two particular schools of thought and practise, one emphasising Ashla, the other Bogan, but it was not until war came from outside the worlds they knew, that discord came between them. They splintered into many factions and left that world behind for good. 

“It is also said that the Arkanii were one of those factions, one which did not align to either of the two schools. But who can say what the truth is after so many ages have passed? All that is known for certain is that the Jedi became the Order, devoted to Ashla, with a new code.”

“We have much speculation in this myth of yours,” Vader said sharply. “But little of any relevance.”

“You’re saying that the Dark Side is just a part of the Force that was corrupted?” Luke asked. “Because of the kinds of people using it. And that’s why you have to use anger and hate to call on it now? If so then surely it’s important to avoid the Dark Side at all costs!”

“The Force is not a simple thing, and made all the more complicated by the philosophies of those who use it, which are as varied as the stars in the sky,” Alkamar replied. “Your father may be right to say that it does not matter to you here and now how the Force came to be unbalanced. It was the hope of the Arkanii that there exists a way to cleanse Bogan of the damage that has been done to it by the Sith and others over the years - and perhaps within the bounds of our small domain we had some small success. But our burdens are not yours to bear. What is it that _you_ want?”

That was the question that Luke had been asking himself since he’d been brought to Vjun. “You said that the ways of the Jedi and the Sith are both corrupt,” he replied slowly. “And from what I’ve been told of the Jedi Order before it was destroyed I can’t argue with that. I suppose what I want is something… some way to use the Force that doesn’t involve hurting people, or trying to pretend that I don’t have any emotions. I want something I can choose of my own free will - and that others can choose too.”

Alkamar smiled. “We may have done our best to cut ourselves off from the galaxy outside our own sector but that doesn’t mean we were ignorant of what went on in it. You, warlord, a question for you. What is the Sith Code?”

“Peace is a lie, there is only passion,” Vader replied, with slight reluctance. “Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.”

Luke couldn’t hide his surprise. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting to hear, but it wasn’t _that_. Those words weren’t power for power’s sake, and he couldn’t imagine the Emperor giving any thought to freedom or the breaking of chains. And what about the Inquisitorius? They certainly weren’t free. No-one had ever given _them_ a choice after the Empire got its hands on them - if anything the Sith had been the ones to chain them. He could see why those words would appeal to his father, but… how did Sidious really treat him? Vader still called him his former Master. He saw now what Alkamar had meant, during that first conversation. If this truly was the Sith Code, then they really had forgotten the meaning of it. 

“Long have the Sith seemed to feel that the last two sentences of their own code mean nothing to them,” the Arkanii said in a mocking tone, echoing his thoughts. “Or do you disagree, warlord?”

Vader said nothing. Luke could feel that he was thinking hard, or at least his emotions were roiling underneath the heavy barrier of his shields, only partially making it through their bond. He couldn’t guess exactly what was causing that turmoil, but he hoped perhaps the holocron’s argument had gotten through to his father. 

“Not that the Jedi are any better,” Alkamar continued. “They too, are prone to forgetting the code they claim to live by. ‘Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force.’ If they practised what they preached, I would not call them unbalanced!”

Vader looked up. “That is not the code,” he said. 

At that the holocron _did_ look surprised. “It was the code as taught even as late as the war with the Sith. Has it changed then, in the thousands of years since?”

“There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no…”

“I think I take the point,” Alkamar said with absolute disgust. “If things had become as bad as that then I cannot fault you your destruction, Sith. Would they turn Ashla into another Bogan? Poison yet more of the Force? Peace without emotion, serenity without passion? How can anyone care about suffering, about injustice, how can they have drive to make the galaxy a better place if that’s their attitude?”

“That doesn’t mean the Jedi should have died!” Luke said, with sudden anger. This might be a discussion of philosophy, but the consequences had been real. The Jedi Order might have been wrong about many things, but that didn’t excuse what the Empire - or his father - had done to them. 

“I apologise, my student,” Alkamar said. “You are right, of course. If my sympathy for the Jedi is limited, it is only because they showed none to my own people. They had no knowledge of us before they found us, but they came with eyes fresh from war with the Sith, and Sith were all they knew how to see. If I had not locked my holocron so that neither Sith or Jedi alone could open it, I am sure I would have been destroyed as well. As it is from what you have told me, all that is left of the Arkanii is legends.

“But no matter; to return to the question I first asked you of what you desire from your training, do you feel there is any merit in these long-abandoned codes?”

“Yes,” Luke replied. “In both of them. I want… balance, I suppose.”

His father spoke. “There can be no balance between Dark and Light. The Dark Side is all-encompassing, and once started on this path there is no return.”

“Is that the dogma of the Sith or the Jedi in this new age?” Alkamar asked. “It is not true. Qel-Droma proved that. He joined the Sith, then revoked them for the Jedi once again.” She paused. “I see you make no effort to deny it?”

“He was not a true Sith. He did not fall so far.” Yet Luke was sure his father was less certain about that than he sounded. 

“Perhaps your Jedi have merely claimed that to lessen their own shame,” the holocron said. “Or the Sith, for the same reasons. It does not matter to me. But the Dark Side is always dangerous, true, and so very eager to please in the worst of ways. Anger and hate unfettered are corrupting. _Power_ is corrupting, unchecked. And once you start down the path of evil, so often events occur which make it seem impossible to ever return. It is not Bogan itself which makes monsters. The Sith do that to themselves - sometimes because they were monsters before, and sometimes because it is less painful to be a monster than to face the work of one’s own hands.”

Vader shook his head, made a sharp, cutting gesture with one hand. “The Dark Side is power, that is all. And for the work we _must_ accomplish, power is everything. I did not permit this farce to continue so long because it pleases me, I did so in the hopes that it might offer something _useful_. Thus far it has not.”

“What you wish is to fight a war against a Sith Lord; no easy task,” Alkamar said. “But if your son is to join you on this endeavour what he must have above all else is certainty. There can be no room for doubt. You speak of power, but to gain power one must have strength of will and purpose. At present Luke is divided against himself and there is no clear path ahead of him. My questions are meant to help him find that path.”

“I _do_ know what I want,” Luke told the holocron. “I _do_ want to see the Emperor thrown down. It’s only that my father and I disagree on how, and what happens after that.”

“You will still require the power of the Dark Side,” Vader said. 

“I disagree!” They were both too stubborn for this. Luke was going to have to say this over and over again until his father gave in - and that wouldn’t be any time soon. 

“I assume you are already receiving physical combat training then,” Alkamar said, before their argument had a chance to develop. “It is mental training, training in Force techniques, that we must concern ourselves with. For the Arkanii, combat is the path of the Suns - the path of attack, the path of aggression - and it requires passion. But I can see _that_ is not something you lack, my young student.”

“Passion… but not anger?” Luke asked.

“Passion, emotion, yes even anger if it is a righteous anger. It cannot be anger alone. Positive emotions, love, compassion, the desire to protect… such things are your shield and your balance. In such a way it is possible to use your anger as strength without drawing on the poison that Bogan has become.”

“Then that’s what I want you to show me,” Luke said firmly. “That is what I want to learn.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Piett tries not to panic, Vader contemplates the words of the Arkanii holocron, Sheev Palpatine is The Worst, and Commander Dogma has prepared a little something special for a certain Skywalker.

**0 ABY - ISD Accuser, Mon Calamari sector**

After Vader’s agent had finally left the ship, Piett returned to his quarters and opened a bottle of navy rum. His hands were shaking almost too hard to pour it, and he had to put the bottle down and take a few deep breaths to calm himself. It was fine. The recording devices had been deactivated. There was no record of the fact that he had just agreed to treason against the Imperial Throne. 

Unless all of this was nothing more than an elaborate trap and even now evidence of his betrayal was being uploaded to COMPNOR - no. Just because he found himself in an unbelievable situation was no reason to start speculating wildly - although nobody got anywhere within Imperial ranks without a healthy dose of paranoia. Vader wasn’t the kind of man who would let his name be thrown around without his personal approval, and what possible reason would he have to test anyone’s loyalty like that? But, another part of Piett argued, he’s not the kind of man to mount a coup either. Vader was the paragon of Imperial loyalty - anyone who knew anything about him knew that. 

But even the most loyal soldier could only accept so much before that loyalty was stretched to its breaking point. That was why Piett had said what he had, promised what he had. He’d been thinking about this very problem before the agent’s arrival. The Empire felt posed on a precipice; everything that it had done, everything it stood for, had been for, was at risk of collapsing. The budgetary waste of the Death Star, blown into components barely worth the raw material they contained. The Rebel Alliance, only growing stronger in the wake of their great victory. Outer Rim systems, ignored for too long, now become bastions of piracy, slave trading, all of the disordered scum of the universe all too quick to take advantage of any weakness perceived or otherwise. 

Vader had seen that the Emperor was no longer fit to lead the Empire through this turbulent time. Piett believed him; if anyone was able to make that kind of judgement it was the Emperor’s own right hand and instrument of his will. And it was clear too that Vader had some kind of plan for what was to be done about the Empire’s problems, although naturally the details of this hadn’t been shared with him yet. Piett trusted Vader’s reputation even though he had never met the man personally. 

So. He had said yes. Promised to lend his support to the coup when the time came. Promised to be Vader’s man on _Executor_ and persuade his fellow officers and subordinates of the rightness of their cause. 

Force protect him - he was committed to it now. Treason. He’d never thought himself capable of it. 

Best to get drunk. He could contemplate the consequences of his decision in the morning. 

\----

**0 ABY - Bast Castle, Vjun, Nuiri Sector, Outer Rim**

Vader had been well aware that he had been operating on borrowed time on Vjun, waiting for orders from Tagge to come through, but that made it no easier to bear when it finally happened. In truth, he had expected it sooner after the Emperor’s holocall. Perhaps if it had been, they could have avoided all this confusing business with the holocron. 

To make such claims about the Dark Side… to call Sith ways wrong, unbalanced and claim that they had forgotten their own code… he had expected something like it since she had already made her opinions on the Sith clear, but not to this extent. Frankly, she confused him. Firstly she had resorted to myths, the province of galactic backwaters and the unenlightened. Myths were for children and those who knew no better. The Jedi had been ignorant of many things, but they had been right to teach him that much. Neither Jedi or Sith had time for such things - they were _logical, rational_ beings. If they told stories of the Force or of history, they were based in provable _fact._

Secondly she knew a version of the Jedi Code he had never heard before, and yet from her manner Vader was sure she was telling the truth that it was the only one she knew. It didn’t seem possible that the philosophy of the Jedi could have changed that much - the code she had given them was almost more Dark than Light. In their weakness and fear, no Jedi could ever _accept_ their emotions rather than insisting on suppressing them. He could imagine trying to argue otherwise with Kenobi as well as _exactly_ the expression of horror it would produce. Although Alkamar also claimed that the Jedi of her times did not follow their own code particularly closely. 

What if the Jedi _had_ followed a code like that? What if they had seen the truth that the Sith already knew - that emotions were a source of strength, not weakness? Would such an Order also prohibit attachment? Would they have prevented him from rescuing his mother before it was too late? Would they have had some knowledge of the Sith alchemy that might have preserved his dear Padme’s life? 

Why was he even permitting himself to consider such questions? Even the holocron had said the Jedi had _never_ been like that. But no, he knew why he was thinking like this. Because of Luke. 

His son was an idealist, which was no bad thing to be in theory, and he was just as stubborn as Vader knew he could be himself. Yet this galaxy was no place for idealism, nor would it ever be until they had changed it for the better. There was no path fit for either of them but the Dark Side… not until the Emperor was defeated and Luke placed on the throne. But then? Afterwards? 

Idealists could only enact their vision in a time of peace, but when peace did come, would Vader really stand in the way of his son’s ambitions? Had he not sworn to himself that he would do the things Luke didn’t have the temperament for, for just this reason? His son would no longer need the power and strength of the Dark Side, because Vader would play that part for him. If there was anyone who could build a Jedi Order that was not the foolish, weak, hypocritical Order he had known, it was Luke. It was what his son wanted. What would make him happy. 

However, none of that changed their current situation. 

And that was the problem with the holocron. At the end of their session it had managed to guide Luke in a meditation that utilised his emotions and it was true that he had been able to touch the Force like that… but it still hadn’t been the Dark Side he was drawing on. He did not countenance the possibility that it had been some ‘other aspect’ either - that was nonsense - it had still been the Light. It was crucial that Luke was strong enough to defeat Sidious when the time came, and Vader would not place his trust in teachings he did not know. Their time was too limited. As his son had said, this _might_ be a step nearer accepting his anger and hate, but the longer it took for him to accept the Dark Side, the more concerned Vader became. And it was not only a matter of power but of what the Emperor would say when their final confrontation came. Sidious was… convincing. 

If Luke were not already a Sith, not already sure and certain of what he was about to do, then Sidious might somehow be able to persuade him… 

Vader did not want to consider the possibility of that. 

Tagge had not said how long this current task might take him. At present the Astarte twins were continuing their protracted campaign against the Plasma Devils - protracted only due to their own incompetence - and it appeared Tagge had no intentions of giving them any assistance. Indeed if they continued to produce only failures it would serve as an excuse to eliminate them, which Vader sensed the Grand General now desired almost as much as he did. Tagge had something else in mind for Vader - the mining world of Shu-Torun. Given that the materiél it produced was currently allocated to the construction of _Executor_ , it was in his interests to ensure an outcome that benefited the Empire. 

This was almost diplomacy. Or rather call it ‘aggressive negotiations’. He was more suited to the later, and certainly did not anticipate this taking long, allowing what he hoped was a swift return to Vjun. 

There was one matter which Vader _did_ want to settle during his time away. Karbin. He had not forgotten the trap the Mon Calamari had set for him at Vrogas Vas, or everything it had cost him. The damage to Padme’s ship, disgracing her memory. What Vader had done to his daughter not knowing any better. 

He would have his revenge for that. Karbin would die, and Force take the consequences. 

But enough of this. He had made his preparations, now it was time to inform his son of his impending departure.

\----

“You’re leaving?” Luke shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was. His father was still Darth Vader - he had duties and responsibilities to the Empire, much as Luke might hate that fact. He should have known that he would have to return to those duties at some point, and truthfully their time on Vjun had been more than he might have expected, had he thought about it. 

“I do not wish to,” his father replied. “However we are not yet ready to move against the Emperor, and to disobey would be to announce our intentions.”

“I understand. I guess I’m not coming with you?”

“That would be unwise.” Yes, Luke could just imagine what sort of reaction he might get if he simply turned up on an Imperial Star Destroyer. He was still a Rebel, still the destroyer of the Death Star. “While I am gone you will continue your training,” Vader said. “In addition to the Twelfth Brother I have also directed Commander Dogma to assign some men to work on hand-to-hand combat with you. You may not need to use it but it would be foolish not to at least prepare for the possibility.”

Luke nodded. It did sound like a smart idea. “And the holocron?” he asked. After his father’s insistence on being there for any teaching it gave him, he wasn’t hopeful, but it had been so useful... Indeed, as expected, Vader shook his head. 

“I shall be taking the holocron with me for safekeeping,” he replied. “Practise what you have already been shown. I am hopeful I will not be away for too long.”

“When you _do_ get back...” Luke hesitated. There had been no chance to ask this before, but if not now then who knew when he would get another chance? “I think Ezra should know about this.”

“Why?” No, his father wasn’t best pleased with that idea. Luke forged ahead anyway.

“He should have the chance to know that there’s another way of doing things.”

“What you _believe_ is a better way,” Vader pointed out, crossing his arms across his chest. “Is your own stubbornness not sufficient, my son, that you want to lead others astray also? This is not an opportune time to do so.”

“So there _might_ be a time in the future?” Luke asked, jumping on the possible implications of _that_ statement. 

“I did not say that. Focus on the present, my son.”

Luke nodded. That didn’t mean he was admitting defeat, not by any means. He would have plenty of time to come up with some good arguments while his father was away to try and convince him that he was right. And Vader had been a lot less firm on the subject than he might have anticipated. There _was_ hope. 

Of course he still had to think of a way to broach the subject of the future of the Empire. His father clearly had very firm ideas about what was going to happen, ideas which Luke simply couldn’t go along with. But as of yet, he didn’t really know what Vader was planning for this coup. He only ever spoke about killing the Emperor, not how they would even get close enough to do so, or what would happen if Sidious found out about that before they had a chance to put Vader’s plan into effect. How would the Imperials react? How would the _Alliance?_

“I’ll work hard while you’re away,” he said. “It… won’t be for too long, will it?”

“I will make sure it is not.”

His father put a gentle hand on his shoulder. Luke could feel his affection through their Force bond, but it was clear Vader had no idea how to put it into words. Eventually he simply turned and left, his cloak whipping around him. Luke watched him go, wishing he could think of something to say. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this. 

\----

**0 ABY - Imperial Shuttle _Nemesis,_ in hyperspace**

Aphra supposed Captain Piett was alright, for an Imperial officer. At least, he’d given all the right answers to her questions, and he’d had the sense to be wary of her - which was obviously mostly down to her disguise. But she had met Imps who weren’t even smart enough to be scared of their own secret police. Piett was competent, he knew what he was doing. It likely helped that he was from the Outer Rim; he’d actually had to work to get to where he was. 

Vader had been right about the man. He was interested in change. He was no rebel, mind you; he was like Aphra herself. They both appreciated the need for strength, for order. But he could see, just as she could, that the Empire’s present tactics didn’t seem to be getting the desired effect and he had been willing to warily agree that perhaps something ought to be done about that. 

Once she had finished up with Piett, Aphra had reported in to Lord Vader to give him the good news. Her boss had seemed distracted. It was that kid of his. He still wasn’t playing ball. Unfortunately this wasn’t something Aphra could do anything about other than look fairly supportive and get on with the mission she had been assigned. Vader had given her a further list of potential candidates to scout out, mostly captains, mostly young, and mostly not very high up the ranks - and orders to eliminate those who refused to join them. They couldn’t risk this getting back to the Emperor just yet, and hopefully these individuals were unimportant enough and unconnected enough that no-one would figure out what was going on with the ones that did die. 

Triple-Zero and BT-1 were going to be happy. They would finally get a chance to kill organics again. 

\----

**0 ABY - The Royal Palace, Imperial Center**

Did his apprentice really think him so easily fooled? The deception growing in Vader’s heart had been apparent to Darth Sidious for some time now, only more obvious as time went on. It did not take the power of the Dark Side to read Vader’s hesitation, or deduce that he was keeping secrets. Truly, Sidious did not care. In fact, some part of him was pleased. For a long time he had despaired of his apprentice ever showing the least spark of ambition. Vader was strong in the Force, yes, but that did not make him a good Sith, otherwise he would have made a move long before this. 

Of course, Vader could not hope to prevail in this conflict. He did not have the strength; strength in the Force or strength of will. Not for the first time, Sidious lamented what Kenobi had done to his Chosen One. Anakin Skywalker had been a wonderful wellspring of potential, power he had intended to tap in order to complete the works of his own master Darth Plagueis, but Vader… It was not merely his injuries. Losing to Kenobi, Senator Amidala’s death far sooner than he had planned… it had weakened him. Taken the spirit out of him. Vader was still a useful weapon, admittedly, but Sidious mourned what could have been.

As for what might have awakened this desire in the heart of his foolish apprentice, Sidious had his suspicions. He had hoped to spur the man into _some_ sort of reaction by taking power away from him, making him subordinate to Tagge, and further pricking at his pride with his approval of Doctor Cylo’s cyborgs, but none of that would have been sufficient on their own without another contributing factor. A factor which it appeared had been under their noses for the last nineteen years. 

Ironic really. It had been his intent to allow Amidala to live just long enough to birth her child before arranging her death - the blame for which he would have left at the feet of rogue Jedi who had escaped the purge. The hate and anger that would have woken in Skywalker would have only helped him become a better Sith. The loss of that child, who could not have failed to be any less powerful in the Force than her father, had only further inflamed his own rage at the situation. However it was now clear that the child had not been lost after all. Amidala had lived long enough to give birth and hand the girl off to her friend and ally Senator Organa. 

Someone had taught that child how to hide almost perfectly. They had even been bold enough to parade her right into the Senate. What circumstance had finally revealed the truth to Vader, he wondered? Had he seen it in the girl’s mind on the first Death Star? Had it been later? Sidious supposed it was irrelevant now. His apprentice knew, and he was afraid that his Master would find the child before he did. Thus, he moved against him. 

It was galling to have been blinded to the truth for so long, and the more so that the apprentice had known before the master. Vader’s actions had made him suspicious enough to use the shrine far beneath the planet to search the threads of the future within the Force. He had seen the reverberations of a resurgence of the Light, caught glimpses of a confrontation in the shadow of a vast ship - which could only be _Executor_. Vader’s attempts to misguide him into thinking Leia Organa - Leia _Skywalker_ \- a mere ordinary Force-sensitive had only confirmed the truth. 

It would not do to act hastily or without sufficient thought. There was already a substantial bounty on Organa’s head - now stipulating that she be brought to the Empire _alive_ \- and Imperial agents had been sent scouring the galaxy for her. Sidious himself had attempted to ascertain her location, hoping that knowing just what he was looking for would allow him to break past whatever methods she had been using to hide herself, but frustratingly the Light was clouding the Force. He could only feel that she was very far away - and that she was aware of her abilities. 

However it was not necessary to know where a being was if one knew where they were going to be. All that Sidious had to do was wait, and the girl would come right into the trap he was even now laying at Fondor. 

\----

**0 ABY - Bast Castle, Vjun, Nuiri Sector, Outer Rim**

Commander Dogma was very official-looking. Very… straight-laced. Luke hadn’t been sure what he was expecting from the man - a man he had met only once before and that for not very long. The Commander was waiting for him in the salle the morning after his father left Bast Castle, clad in the same blue-decorated set of stormtrooper armour minus his helmet, which he had put down on the floor next to him. He didn’t say anything, merely nodded sharp acknowledgement to Luke and Ezra. 

“Am I supposed to go over and speak to him?” Luke whispered to Ezra. The thought was a little daunting. The last soldier he’d spoken to, Gamma, had felt cheerful and open in the Force, but Dogma was different. He was closed off, almost wary. 

“No, don’t,” Ezra replied. “This is my training session, I’m not going to let him muscle in on it.” He strode into the center of the salle and ignited his saber, looking at Luke expectantly. “We’ll work on swapping between Shii-Cho and Makashi.”

“Okay,” Luke said, glancing over at the man standing by the wall. Commander Dogma still hadn’t said anything. He seemed content to just watch what they were doing. He hoped he didn’t intend to do any combat training of his own after this - there was no way Luke would have the energy! 

He fell into the familiar steps of lightsaber combat, letting the Force wash around him and through him, guiding him so that he barely had to concentrate on what he was doing. Fighting seemed to come as easily as flying. It was the same instinctual movement that sometimes felt as though he was reacting to a world a second ahead of the one everyone else was living in. 

Did the Force feel different since Alkamar’s guidance? He wasn’t sure. The meditation she had talked him through wasn’t so very different to that he’d been doing before, except that where he’d been trying to clear his head she instead told him to focus on what he was _feeling_ and try and match that to the fluctuations of the Force both within and outside of himself. It had certainly seemed to make things a bit easier for him, although it was still easiest to touch the Force when he was pushing his body to its limits. 

“Did you ask Lord Vader about whatever had you so excited yesterday?” Ezra asked him, as he led them from one kata into the next. 

“Yes, but he’s forbidden me talking to you about it.” Luke sighed. “Hopefully I’ll be able to convince him when he comes back.” A thought struck him. “Oh, but there is _something_ I can tell you about. One of the locked doors not far from here is a meditation chamber, and we’re both allowed to use it. I can show you how to open it once we’re finished here.”

Luke normally couldn’t feel anything past Ezra’s mental shields, but he felt _that_ pulse of warmth; gratitude and pleasure. Given how excited Ezra had always been at merely being allowed in Bast Castle, it wasn’t a surprise that he’d be even more so at actually being allowed to use some of the Sith things within it. “You… really mean that?” the Inquisitor asked.

“Of course,” Luke replied. “I wouldn’t joke about something like that.”

He had intended the ‘later’ to be right after they finished up in the salle, but as he had feared the moment that they both finished the final kata and disengaged their lightsabers, Commander Dogma approached. 

“Sir,” he said. “Permission to speak with you.”

“Um…” The man had eyes like a krayt dragon eyeing a tasty bantha. He might sound respectful, but Luke felt bizarrely that he was being somehow sarcastic about it. “Yes?”

“It’s clear you already have a high level of physical capability,” Dogma began, “which is no less than I would expect of a Jedi Padawan…”

“I’m no Jedi,” Luke corrected him. Which was true, but he realised now that he meant it in a completely different way than he would if he had said it only a short few weeks ago. Had he really wanted so much to be a Jedi back then? He hadn’t even known what that meant! 

Dogma eyed him and hummed softly. “You’re not Inquisitor or Sith. What else is there?”

“Did my father put you up to this?” Luke said, irritated. Why would the Commander even care otherwise?

“Of course - Lord Vader ordered me to see to your training in hand-to-hand combat.” Dogma frowned. “I was told you’d already been informed of this.”

“I have, it’s just… now? After all of that…”

“I would call that child’s play,” Commander Dogma told him, “except I’ve seen cadets work harder. No son of my General is going to let the 501st down through lack of fitness.”

That was an interesting way to refer to Vader. It was the same sort of thing Luke had noticed in the way Dogma had spoken so familiarly to him when they’d first arrived on Vjun. Dogma was pretty old - it wasn’t really a stretch to think that he could have fought under his father’s command for a long time, probably even since the Clone Wars. He wanted to ask… but it had been a lot easier with Gamma. 

“A course has been set up in hanger Aurek,” Dogma continued. “You’re going to run it. Follow me.”

“Don’t I get time for lunch first?” Luke protested. 

“If you think that’s wise sir,” Dogma replied. “Nutrient paste _is_ designed to be hard to throw up.”

Luke looked desperately at Ezra. “You should come too!”

Ezra grinned. “Sure, but only to watch! This is going to be good.” 

“I don’t see what running has to do with hand-to-hand combat,” Luke complained, although he did still follow Dogma as the Commander led them from the salle. 

“I’m not going to start any kind of training without building your stamina up first,” the trooper replied. “Trust me, you’ll thank me later.”

Luke understood what he meant, and he really might be glad of this in the future, but that didn’t mean he had to like it right now. His muscles were still getting used to the unfamiliar ways he was asking them to move in his saber katas, and he anticipated that he was going to be aching all over for a good many days to come now if they were adding further training into that. 

“So that’s a no on the nutrient paste then sir?” Dogma asked him. 

“Were you a drill-sergeant in a previous life?” Luke said.

“No,” the Commander replied. “Clones were never employed on Kamino for that purpose.”

“Wait... you’re a clone?” Judging from Ezra’s equally surprised expression, he hadn’t known that either. Luke thought back to what he’d been learning about the Clone Wars - he hadn’t put two and two together before but the markings on the stormtroopers’ armour here were styled just like those of the GAR had been. He wanted to say that surely Dogma was too old - it had only been two decades - but then he remembered that the clones had been designed to age at twice human-standard. He just hadn’t thought that meant they would _continue_ to age at that speed.

“You weren’t aware of that fact sir?”

“No… are you the only clone here?” Luke asked.

“Every member of the 501st here is an original member of that Legion,” Dogma replied. He smirked. “It’s against regulations to be out of armour on duty. I’m not surprised you didn’t notice, sir. Just means my men have been doing their jobs.”

Everyone here was a clone. A veteran of the Clone Wars and a member of the 501st Legion. The names of the Jedi Generals who had led each Legion had been expunged from the files Luke had been studying, but he now had a very firm suspicion as to who the 501st’s General had been. Well, Dogma had said it himself earlier, hadn’t he? 

“So… you all fought with my father then?” he asked casually, and noticed that he’d certainly gotten Ezra’s attention with that.

“Yes, sir,” the Commander replied. “And you don’t know how thankful we all are that was the case. I learned even before Order 66 that the Jedi weren’t to be trusted, but I’m not sure I could have stood having to shoot another General. Thankfully your father was the only one of the Order to remain loyal to Emperor Palpatine, so it never came to that.”

Luke wasn’t sure what he could say to that. He’d known - he’d been _told_ \- that the Empire had as good as exterminated the entire Jedi Order, as well as all the half-lies and propaganda that had been the justification for it. He’d just never known exactly how that extermination was carried out. Perhaps the information was there in the files Vader had given him access to, but he’d never looked. He hadn’t wanted to know details, and his father had never brought it up, not that he would have expected him to. But it had been the clones. 

It made a horrible kind of sense. Who else would be close enough to the Jedi? So an order had been sent out and then… what? The clones had just turned on their commanding officers and shot them, just like that? Without questions, without hesitations? Surely not; people didn’t work that way. Or had it been more gradual, as the Empire’s version of the truth came out? A rolling wave of death, too vast for the Jedi to escape. 

Nor had he missed that Dogma had said _another_ General. And implied it had been some time before Sidious had revealed himself and brought the Empire into being. A Jedi had been executed during the war? Why? Had it just been a rogue element, or… Luke refused to believe that _everything_ the Empire and even his father claimed about the Jedi’s betrayal was true - and he still didn’t know the precise nature of that betrayal. After all, if they had found out what Sidious was, that he was evil, then surely they would have been _right_ to betray him! Just like the Rebellion was right. His father had suggested that it had been a grab for power, and he seemed to believe that himself, but… Luke just didn’t know. Was he being naive? 

Dogma had led them to hanger Aurek before Luke had time to marshal his thoughts enough to come up with another question. As promised, a kind of obstacle course had been laid out in the massive space, some of it using the fighter craft and shuttles as bases for platforms of various heights, even going almost all the way up to the ceiling. How exactly was he meant to make it all the way up there?

“Hey, this isn’t bad,” Ezra said, sounding impressed. Luke glared at him. Ezra shrugged. “It’s far safer than if we were on Mustafar, I can tell you that.”

“I just… I don’t think I can do this,” Luke said. 

“We’ve assessed the course, sir,” Commander Dogma told him. “It’s appropriate for a Force-user of your level of experience.”

Right. You could do all sorts of acrobatics with the Force. Luke tried to push his doubts out of his head and focus. he _could_ do this. 

“Okay,” he said. “Where do I start?”


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Leia contemplates her training and her plans, Ezra wants to arrange something nice for Luke, there is an unexpected encounter in the wild, and Vader attempts an experiment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for putting this up a couple days late - I've been on holiday with no internet access aside from my phone. Next chapter should be up at the usual time next Thursday.

**0 ABY - Outpost Umbra, Unknown Regions**

Leia felt that she was making good progress. For so long the Force had sat quiescent within her and now that she was aware of it, aware of all the little ways she had subconsciously been using it in many small ways, reaching out to it with intent came instinctively. What was more difficult was control – specifically the Jedi ideal of control. Emotions, apparently, held hidden dangers. A little hard to credit; she’d never thought of the Emperor or Vader as particularly emotional individuals, but she trusted Ahsoka, and maybe more importantly she was willing to work as hard as she needed to in order to lessen the chances of becoming anything like the man who had been Anakin Skywalker.

Easier said than done. Her anger at the Empire had been the only thing protecting her in the worst moments of despair. After Alderaan, after the Death Star, when she woke up screaming in the dead of night or when some little thing made her think of her parents, it was only by reminding herself that they _would_ get revenge on the Empire for its crimes that she could stop herself sinking into that black pit of sorrow, the vast, gaping void below her breastbone that threatened to swallow her whole. How could she give up that anger? How could she even contemplate forgiveness...

It wasn’t necessarily forgiveness that Ahsoka was asking of her though. She didn't need forgiveness, only acceptance. It was only that there didn’t seem to be any other way for Leia to set aside her anger - unless she was to forget everything the Empire had done, which obviously wouldn’t happen. She was trying to stop hating them, but she honestly didn’t know how.

It was easier to focus on other things. Perhaps if she just kept her mind on here and now, didn’t allow herself to think of the past or the future any further than what was needed to plan for the assault on the ship _Executor_. As remote as this planet was it naturally lacked an uplink to the HoloNet, so she hadn’t been able to get directly in touch with Alliance High Command to discuss her plans and make sure they would be able to have troops support her effort. However Hera had agreed to take _Ghost_ on a round trip back into charted space just long enough to make a quick connection - Leia thought her agreement had much to do with needing some time of her own to clear her head. Everything that Ahsoka had told them had been a surprise to Hera as well.

Leia had been pouring over the plans in her spare time - with the help of Han, and Captain Syndulla before she had left, to make sure there wasn’t anything she was overlooking - and it was clear the Alliance would never be able to take the ship. It was simply too big - they might be able to fly it out of the shipyards under a skeleton crew but they would never have enough people to run it after that. There was no way of adding it to their own fleet no matter how she might wish otherwise. They would have to scuttle it. It would be possible, but it would need at least two teams to take the bridge and the main engine control room - plus others to cause distractions throughout Fondor Shipyards.

Would this be the blow to Vader that she wanted? Probably not. But certainly destroying _Executor_ would be a powerful victory for the Alliance. She had asked both Ahsoka and Rex - who had served under General Skywalker - and they had told her that Anakin had always felt a connection to his ships whether they were personal starfighters or Star Destroyers. But was that still true for Vader?

She shouldn’t be thinking too hard about him. He might be her biological father but that didn't mean much. She still hated the man for everything he had done to her.

It was almost time for the evening meal. Leia left her room and made her way through into the living area. She admitted she hadn’t been terribly sociable with the others living here apart from Ahsoka. The members of Spectre cell were respectful towards her but they had their own problems to deal with, including learning that their former friend-turned-Inquisitor was still alive and well. The clones were well-meaning but had clearly spent a lot of time on their own with only each other for company. Right now no-one else seemed to be around - except for Han, she saw, who was sitting by the window with a cup of caf.

Leia filled her own cup from the machine and went to join him.

“Hey princess,” Han said. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Training with Ahsoka has been… interesting,” Leia replied.

“Yeah…” Han hesitated, playing with his mug, turning it round in his hands. “I guess I have’ta believe in all this nonsense now that I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

“I still don’t understand why you were so sceptical before,” Leia said, frowning. “My father told me stories of the old Jedi Order, about things he had personally seen and experienced. You’re older than me, don’t you remember anything from the end of the Clone Wars? The Empire might have suppressed recordings and spread their propaganda, but even they don’t deny that the Jedi could do things other sentients can’t.”

Han sighed. “Yeah, I remember some,” he said. “I remember that they were heroes, especially to a kid. But guess what; that didn’t save them. Not all their powers, not those fancy lightsabers, not the fact that the entire HoloNet had been singing their praises for the last three years… I guess that was when I stopped believing. Because if it all _had_ been real… then why did it happen?”

“Han…” Leia said softly.

“The Force is supposed to be this all-powerful thing, right,” Han continued. “And the Jedi were the good guys. But after the Empire wiped them out it was either accept that they’d gone horribly wrong somewhere along the way - which was clearly a load of nonsense - or they just hadn’t been able to save themselves. And if they couldn’t save themselves, how could anyone go on thinking they could save us?

“It was easier to stop thinking about the Jedi. Just… forget them.”

“And now?” Leia asked him.

“Now? Now I’ve got you and Luke and our Togruta friend all running around trying to prove me wrong.” Han smirked. “Maybe there’s still some room for heroes in this galaxy after all - but don’t tell anyone I said that.”

\----

**0 ABY - Bast Castle, Vjun, Nuiri Sector, Outer Rim**

“Commander Dogma!” Ezra cornered the clone trooper in hanger Aurek before he could leave for the day. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead, Inquisitor,” Dogma replied, turning to face him. Ezra always got the sense - both from his own impressions and through the Force - that the clone didn’t trust him or like him very much. He was good at putting a professional facade on their interactions, but Mustafar had taught Ezra how to read people. He could guess at least some of the reasons behind it - Dogma didn’t trust Force-users in general, and how could he blame him? The clone had personal experience of Jedi treachery.

“I was wondering if you - the garrison I mean - are doing anything for Life Day?” It had been a few weeks now since Lord Vader’s departure and Life Day was fast approaching, bringing the turn of the year with it. Life Day had never really been a big thing in Ezra’s life since his parents were taken from him, but he wasn’t sure if the same was true for Luke. If it _did_ mean something to him, then he hoped that Vader would get back in time for it, but he wouldn’t have put credits down on the chance. Hence asking Dogma, just in case they could take Luke’s mind off his father’s absence.

“It’s traditional for us to go on a hunt in the days before the holiday,” Commander Dogma told him. “An off-shoot of a Mandalorian practise I believe. The hunt provides the meat for the Life Day feast.”

Well that would be a welcome change from varied flavours of nutrient paste. “What is there to hunt on _this_ planet?” Ezra asked.

“The native animals have adapted to the adverse conditions here,” Dogma said. “Something the townsfolk have also taken advantage of.”

“Wait, there’s other people here?”

“Of course.” Dogma frowned at him. “It’s common for the men to go out to the settlements when they aren’t on duty to spend their pay. This isn’t a dangerous posting; some frivolity can be excused.”

“I just assumed we were the only ones… What do they even do here? There weren’t any signs of large settlements or industry visible from orbit when we arrived,” Ezra pointed out.

“Economics isn’t my area.”

Ezra supposed not, and he shouldn’t have made any assumptions either. That was a dangerous pastime. “So, going back to this hunt thing… how does that work? Aren’t there a few too many clones…”

“Squads shuttle out to appropriate locations on a strict schedule,” Dogma replied. “I suppose next you’re going to ask me if you can come along?”

Ezra grinned. “Something like that,” he said. “I thought Luke’s not going to have anything to do for Life Day if Lord Vader doesn’t get back in time, so…”

Dogma nodded sharply. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll assign you both to a squad. Perhaps it’ll do Commander Skywalker some good to get out of the castle.”

Ezra tried not to laugh. Luke kept insisting the clones didn’t use a military title to address him but his protests never seemed to work, and it was funny how much a little thing like that annoyed him. He should start getting used to it, particularly given that he might be ruling the Empire in a few years time. “I’ll let Luke know about the plans,” he said.

Aside from Lord Vader’s continuing absence, things had been going well. Luke was continuing to improve his lightsaber techniques, and after Dogma had finally had enough of running him ragged in hanger Aurek they had moved on to the combat training that had been promised. Luke hadn't taken to this with the same instinctive ease, but Dogma seemed satisfied with his progress, and the increased stamina was also showing its usefulness in Ezra’s own training sessions. Ezra thought he might try to run the course from time to time himself - he hadn’t really had the time or opportunity to keep up to the rigorous standards of Mustafar and he shouldn’t let himself get soft just because he wasn't actively being monitored anymore.

Luke seemed happy with the idea of the Life Day hunt when Ezra brought it up over dinner, although more for the opportunity to spend time with the clones than at the idea of killing something at the end of it. Luke had never actually bothered moving out of Ezra and Aphra’s quarters into the rooms that had originally been assigned to him - and he had made the point that it wasn’t as though they were lacking for space here. The clones had brought him all of the clothing that had been waiting in those other rooms along with the datapad and all the other odds and ends, and that was that. Ezra wasn’t going to complain. He liked the company.

“Did Commander Dogma say when this was going to be?” Luke asked him.

“A few days before Life Day itself,” Ezra replied. “So it can’t be long.”

“I never even saw what Vjun looks like outside,” Luke said thoughtfully. “I didn’t want to go up to the cockpit of the yacht at the time and this castle is built like a Star Destroyer - there hardly seems to be any windows! The most glimpse I’ve gotten is through the magnetic shields in the hanger, and half the time it’s raining.”

“It’s not the friendliest of planets,” Ezra told him. “But it can’t be that bad if people do live here.”

\----

A few days after that conversation, instead of Luke’s usual afternoon session with Dogma the Commander summoned him and Ezra and led them both to one of the other hangers where a small group of clone troopers were waiting for them under the shadow of an Imperial shuttle. Instead of their usual white and blue-marked armour they were all wearing form-fitting suits of what Ezra first thought was black synth-leather, until he got close enough to see the strange sheen of it.

“What is this stuff?” he asked.

“Kathan-weave,” one of the clones replied. “The locals make it from some kind of plant - it’s completely resistant to the acid rain.”

“We’ve got sets for you as well,” another told them. “Trust me, you’ll want them.”

A quick glance through the hanger’s mag shields revealed that yes, it was raining, with no signs of stopping any time soon. Ezra didn’t know if they were going far enough to get out from under the storm, but either way, why take the risk?

“You can get changed in the shuttle,” Commander Dogma said. “Your companions are Sergeant Fox,” He pointed to the first man who had spoken, “Gamma, Shortstack, Diver, and Whiplash. Ib-tuur jatne tuur ash’ad kyr’amur.”

“Oya!” The clones replied, grinning. Ezra didn’t know Mando’a but he could get a sense of the meaning from the Force. Good hunting, basically. He accepted one of the bodysuits from the clone called Shortstack and boarded the shuttle. Luke followed him, smiling.

“I have a good feeling about this,” he told Ezra.

With a low whine the shuttle’s repulsors came online and they lifted lightly off the deck and out of the hanger. Ezra changed his clothes in the ‘fresher. The kotal-weave clung to him in a way that was slightly uncomfortable at first, but at least it was warm and well-insulated. There were a pair of thin gloves, boots with the same oily sheen, and the tunic had a hood with a flap that came across to cover the nose and mouth. He strapped his belt back on over the top and checked his lightsaber was secure. Presumably the clones would do most of the actual hunting, but he wanted to be ready just in case.

The landing site took them about half an hour to get to. The shuttle set down at the bottom of a gorge which led upwards into the hills. The landscape was bare and rocky but there were occasional plants: bushes with thin sharp needles; short stubby trees; rough grass and patches of moss. It was raining, but only a light drizzle that splatted and ran off the kotal-weave leaving a sharp scent in the air. The troopers filed out and readied their blasters, scanning the terrain. Ezra couldn’t see any signs of life, but he could feel it in the Force, little pricks of pure instinct scattered here and there.

“So what are we hunting?” Luke asked, making Ezra realise that he hadn’t actually considered that question himself.

“We’ll see what shows itself,” Sergeant Fox said. “There are a number of herbivore species that live in the area - carnivores too but they’re not good eating.”

“Take the lead then Sergeant,” Luke said with a broad smile.

“Yes, sir,” Fox replied, and signalled to the rest of the squad. “Move out.”

“You know we could lead them right to something,” Ezra whispered.

“That wouldn’t be very fair,” Luke replied. “C’mon, I want to see how they track animals. No-one on Tatooine ever hunted anything, unless you count picking off womp rats, but they’re vermin, they came to us.”

They followed the troopers up a faint trail into the gorge. Sharp walls of stone rose up on either side. A trickle of water with a chlorine stink ran past their feet, warded off by the heavy boots. Ahead, Gamma held up a hand for the group to pause and crouched down to examine something.

“Spoor,” the clone announced. “About a day old; not much to go on.”

Sergeant Fox nodded. “Gotal droppings; they’re herd animals. Shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

Ezra became aware of the feeling of being watched. There was something in the Force… a cold, hard intelligence, something careful and hungry. He scanned the high walls of the gorge but there was nothing to be seen - no movement, no shadows or shapes that didn’t seem to belong. Should he say something? The Dark Side didn’t seem to be warning him of any immediate danger, just the need to be wary. Still. He nudged Luke.

“Do you feel that?”

“Feel what?” Luke asked, frowning.

“In the Force.”

Luke focused momentarily then shook his head.

Ezra wasn’t sure what to make of this. Luke might not be an expert in using the Force but he should still have been able to sense a presence like this one. On the other hand, Ezra had always been able to forge connections with living creatures in a way that most other Force-sensitives couldn’t - at least not without a lot of practise. So maybe he was picking something up from a predator further away; it didn’t necessarily have to be _them_ that the mind was watching. “Never mind,” he said. “Just stay alert.”

Their squad continued climbing further up the rough trail. The watchful presence didn’t go away, but neither was their any physical sign of it either, so Ezra was able to relax a little. At least, he was until the moment Whiplash called out to the rest of the group in a way which made the other clones come running. Ezra and Luke followed, and found them standing underneath an outcropping of rock staring at the still-damp bones and hide of some kind of animal - perhaps one of the gotal they were looking for. The creature was a gangly mix of reptile and ungulant.

“Freshly killed,” Fox said, sounding grim. “Although that might be good for us - predator won’t be hungry.”

“Assuming there’s just the one,” Whiplash said.

“What do you think killed it?” Luke asked.

The Dark Side rippled. Ezra turned, his heart sinking, and found himself looking at over three meters of dark hide, whipcord muscle, spines, and a mouthful of teeth. The creature hissed at him from its perch on the rocks they had just clambered over, viperous tongue flicking out to taste the air. Another hiss to the side - oh, it had a friend. Wonderful. Blasters came up all around him, safeties clicking as they were disengaged.

“ _Haar-chak!_ ” Gamma cursed. “Hssiss! They’ve got us trapped under here, sir.”

“Keep together,” Sergeant Fox commanded. “Present a united front - they’ll be less likely to attack. And no-one shoot unless I give the order; we’ll need concentrated fire to take them down.”

Ezra had a feeling he should recognise that name… hssiss. It had a resonance to it that seemed so familiar, but he would remember seeing an animal like these. Yellow, slit-pupiled eyes flicked over him and away. They seemed focused on Luke and the clones; it was almost like they were ignoring him. They burned in the Dark Side, minds like lances of intent. This wasn’t just a predatory hunger, there was something else… but he couldn’t detect what.

“I take it these are our carnivores?” Luke asked, unhooking his lightsaber from his belt. At the movement the two hssiss opened their jaws wide, letting Ezra see the fangs that hinged downwards from the top of their mouths. A droplet of something unpleasant beaded at the tip of one.

“No, wait,” Ezra found himself saying, not even sure who he was talking to. He reached out a hand towards the creatures, reaching out with the Force at the same time. As he’d thought, it was the same cold intelligence he’d been feeling earlier. They weren’t quite sentient, but only just. They were clever; clever enough to set traps, and clever enough to be reasoned with. Touching their minds wasn’t like making a connection with the mind of a normal animal, where it was relatively easy to override their will and issue his own commands. He caught at their thoughts, hearing the whisper of words of a sort… but not in any language he knew. If he wanted to stop these hssiss, he would need something simpler…

_Why?_ he projected, a concept rather than a word. The hssiss reared back, blinking, and refocused their attention on him. He felt them answering through the Force, crudely, their own curiosity and concern. Ezra had communicated several times with other Inquisitors mind-to-mind, and although there were similarities it hadn’t been quite like this. He tried to clarify. _What do you want?_

_Intruder. Interloper,_ the creatures sent back, impression like pictures flickering across Ezra’s mind.

_Here hunting. Reassurance._ If the hssiss were only being territorial, Ezra hoped this would convince them that they hadn’t meant to intrude; hadn’t even known the hssiss were here. Perhaps it would be enough to satisfy them if they just left the area…

_No. Other._ As one, the two creatures turned to look at Luke, hissing once again. _Light. Not-belonging._ Ezra received another picture - a memory this time. A dark, cloaked figure, no more than a shadow, with golden-yellow eyes. A command, passed along the generations. He understood now. This wasn’t just predatory instinct. The hssiss were acting on orders from some long-dead Sith; orders to hunt down anything that was not of the Dark Side. The clones hadn’t drawn their ire; Luke had.

_He’s not a Jedi!_ Ezra tried to say… but the concept of ‘Jedi’ was too complicated, he could feel that it hadn’t gotten through to them. He wouldn’t be able to keep their attention much longer, he could already feel them straining against the connection he had made, eager to return to their task. In desperation, he sent an image of the only thing he could think of; Darth Vader. Not just his appearance, but his presence in the Force; immense power heavy as thunderclouds, the cold flames of a black sun.

The hssiss paused.

_His father!_ Ezra sent. _Sith! Sithspawn!_

Slowly, the threat went out of the creatures. They relaxed, jaws closing, plates of spines brought back in close to their bodies.

“Whatever you’re doing Inquisitor,” Sergeant Fox whispered, “keep doing it.”

One of the hssiss let out a little chirp, almost bird-like. It padded over to Ezra and tasted the air around him, projecting satisfaction in the Force. Now that they weren’t poised to attack, there was something sort of reassuring about them. He reached out and scratched it under its chin, making it close its eyes and and chirp again several times.

“Now that’s just unnatural,” Whiplash said, lowering his blaster.

“Now what?” Gamma whispered.

Neither of the creatures seemed to have any intentions of leaving. Ezra found he didn’t want them to. He was mesmerized by them; their sharp, quick minds, their presence in the Dark Side. But the clone was right; they couldn’t stay here forever. They had come here for a reason. Ezra tried to communicate this to the hssiss. They cocked their heads, listening, and then more images flashed across Ezra’s mind.

“They can lead us to the gotal herd,” he told the others.

“How are you doing that?” Luke asked, sounding fascinated. “You’re… in their heads somehow” So Luke could feel that much at least.

“Lead us?” Whiplash said. “More like lead us back to their nest for an easy dinner!”

“We can’t hunt with a couple of hssiss around,” Shortstack added. “You might have them under control somehow sir, but how long will that last?”

“They don’t want to leave,” Ezra protested, then sighed. “Well, they don’t want to leave _me_. You go on ahead. I’ll stay here until you get back.”

“We wouldn’t be doing our duty if we just left you here with them, Inquisitor,” Sergeant Fox said.

“I’ll be fine,” Ezra said. “They won’t hurt me.”

“I could stay with you,” Luke offered. “I’m only a tag-along on this hunt anyway.”

“This was meant to be a fun day out,” Ezra muttered to himself, then louder; “No, I insist. Maybe this way they'll get bored and go away themselves.” Personally he doubted it

“Very well sir,” Sergeant Fox said.

The clones, followed somewhat reluctantly by Luke, edged their way around the hssiss and back onto the main trail, heading off up the gorge. They were quickly lost to sight, hidden by the tall walls of stone. Ezra sighed and kept petting the hssiss. What was he going to do after the hunt was finished? He couldn’t exactly put these two on the shuttle.

Could he?

\----

**1 ABY - Shu-Torun, Mid Rim**

Vader watched the flow of magma pour from the cavern ceiling, turning the great delving citadel into nothing more than slag. Next to him Queen Trios protested, but he paid no her no heed. He was remembering a planet on fire, heat that had licked the skin from the flesh beneath, air hot enough to scorch the lungs that breathed it in. The suit did not allow him to feel the temperature here in the planet’s lower crust but memory more than made up for that.

He detested this world. His efforts here should have been sufficient on the first occasion, but these ore-barons were both stubborn and foolish. This war was a waste of time for everyone involved, and since these rebels had been arrogant enough to test the Empire he intended to make them dearly regret their actions. Scorched earth tactics - perhaps, but they had not listened to more temperate measures.

“Let us return to the palace,” he ordered. Little was left now of the delving citadel. Any of the ore-barons’ forces which had attempted evacuation had been gunned down by his troops. He was in no mood for mercy. Vader turned away from the sight. The day’s work was done; later they would contact the enemy and see if this had been sufficient to force them to contemplate surrender. If not…

He would crush them in the name of the Empire. In the name of order. They had no right to their defiance, no merit to their grievances. How dare they hold up the construction of the Empire’s weapons - his own _Executor_ first and foremost amongst them.

Perhaps worse than the waste of his time was the fact that he was being forced to work with Doctor Cylo and his heretical abominations. At least their number had now been reduced by one - he had located Karbin and terminated him, taking no pains to make it quick. Nor would the corpse be easy for any to find; let it simply appear that the Mon Calamari had disappeared. The Emperor had warned him against killing these fools, at least in any obvious way, and that much was a command he would obey.

The Emperor had directed him back to Shu-Torun in the wake of that via a holo transmission, in which he had not once mentioned the subject of Leia Organa or her Force-sensitivity. Vader had immediately been suspicious, but there had been no reports of anyone claiming the bounty on his daughter or indeed any reports of her whereabouts whatsoever. He had meditated, searched the Force, but sensed nothing. He believed she was safe for now, wherever the Rebellion had her hiding. There would be time to conduct his own search for her later, once _Executor_ was under his command, as well as any other military might Sidious was foolish enough to give him.

He could not deny to himself either that he loathed every minute spent away from his son. Luke’s training was at a very delicate stage and he should be there to guide him, to make sure he was becoming all that he had the great potential to be. He wanted this for Luke’s own sake - and to protect him from what was coming. Vader was capable of playing for time with the Emperor but he could not prevent him finding out the truth forever. Eventually the decision of when to make their move would be taken out of their hands.

Doctor Cylo was waiting for him upon his return to the palace, studying a holo-map of the planet marked with what they knew of the insurgents’ positions. The Astarte twins were with him, albeit somewhat cowed. Tagge had disciplined them for their delay in locating and destroying the Plasma Devils - although through force of stubborn persistence they had eventually succeeded in that mission. Vader ignored them, sweeping past them towards his personal quarters. He had already made his plans for this war clear to them. Queen Trios followed him, even bold enough to come just within the outer room that he had claimed.

Vader turned. The jaws of one of his hyperbaric chambers were already hissing open at his approach.

“If you continue to destroy the citadels like that you will make this planet useless for the Empire too!” she said sharply. “Then who will supply you the ores you need?”

“The ore-barons care only for their material wealth,” Vader told her. “The pain of its destruction will bring them to heel.”

“This is _my_ kingdom that you destroy,” Trios said.

“Do not forget who put you on that throne,” he warned her. She looked away.

  
“I… understand that. But please, this is the cultural heritage of my people, not just the pride of our wealth.”

That meant less than nothing to him - or so he might have said only a short time ago. Something stopped him now. Perhaps he simply did not want to be needlessly cruel. “I will prosecute this war as I deem necessary,” he told her. “It is your own rebellious people who bring the Empire’s wrath down upon their heads. If they capitulate quickly there will be no need for further destruction”

“I appreciate that,” the Queen said. “Forgive me for taking up your time.”

Vader let her leave and stepped inside the hyperbaric chamber, waiting until it had fully closed up around him and the hiss of increasing atmospheric pressure had ceased. Then he allowed the mechanisms within to remove his helm and seated himself in his meditation chair.

One might assume that everything Tagge and the Emperor had required of him of late had not left him much time to his own thoughts. However this neglected to take the long hours spent in hyperspace into account. He had had more than enough time to consider the events at Bast Castle and the words of the Arkanii holocron, to examine her arguments in light of the decision he had taken to move against his former Master. Now he removed the holocron from his belt and placed it before him. It had taken both he and his son to open it - the Dark Side and the Light. Yet the woman had claimed it was possible for one person to use both together - that using the Dark Side did not irrevocably drive out the Light. that one could… stop being a Sith. If that was their desire.

He did not desire that. He had no wish to sacrifice the power that he needed to protect his child - his _children_. But some part of him still wondered. Could he touch the Light Side? It had been so long… did he even remember what it felt like? And surely if he tried and failed it would prove that it had been no more than a lie - that Alkamar was _wrong_.

The Dark Side was ever-present around him - there was little need to call up memories of anger and hate to bring it closer. But the Light… he had spent so long doing his best to unlearn the ways of the Jedi that it was hard to think of them now, to remember how it had felt to meditate using their ways. The Light was nowhere to be seen. In his son’s presence the lesser side of the Force always seemed to be around even if Vader made no effort to touch it.

What had Alkamar said to Luke; to use other emotions, love, joy peace… He could lay claim to none of those save, perhaps, the first. He could no more deny his love for what remained of his family than he could deny the heart beating in his chest. He thought of Luke and felt… something. A flicker like a candle in the night. Like embers. Something that could be coaxed to life by feeding it gently - and he knew much about feeding the Force one's emotions.

Strangely the Dark Side made no objections to his focus on an emotion other than anger. It remained heavy around him, watchful, almost curious. The gentle little flame grew, and then he had it. Its touch burned him, as much as true fire would have, but he was used to pain. He could bear this.

It was not the Light Side as he had known it. Nor as Luke used it at present. It was a feeble channel to… something. Something difficult to categorise.

Although the Temple had taught him what theology was expected of any Padawan he had never naturally been introspective about the nature of the Force, what it was, how it worked. He had always simply… used it. Half without thinking. It had been the same with the Dark - he had allowed himself to _feel_ , truly, deeply, the way he had always been suppressing, and things followed naturally from there. Sidious had also shown him some truths of the Dark Side… but had they not both lied to him in so many ways - Sidious _and_ the Jedi? Why should he trust their words about the Force now, knowing them better? A doubt had crept into his heart the moment he touched the little flame. What if it was _he_ who had been wrong, and the Arkanii’s teachings had some genuine merit?

Carefully, Vader reached out with the tiny flame, the Dark Side following on behind, drawn in the wake of his emotions - no, do not deny it, his _love_ \- for his son. The holocron glowed, and opened before him. Alkamar appeared, smiling.

“So you can be taught,” she said.

 


	21. Part Three: Executor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lord Vader is displeased and suspicious, Captain Piett is good at PowerPoint presentations, Luke senses trouble, and the Alliance mounts an attack with unfortunate consequences for all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here is Arc No. 3 beginning, aka the half way point... I never meant for this to be this long when I started it.

**1 ABY - Shu-Torun, Mid Rim**

Vader observed the holocron in the violet light that washed over the floor and over the dark crystal it had risen from. The Arkanii might have been proven right in one respect, but that did not mean he trusted her. “I am no less a Sith than I was before,” he warned her. 

“So you say,” the woman replied with a smile. “Was this a mere experiment, or do you seek answers from me?”

A question Vader himself had not considered when he began this. He had not expected to be able to open the holocron alone, thus what came after had been of no concern. Yet he had this opportunity to speak to her alone. If he could discover more of the Arkanii ways and of her intentions, then he could better judge what should be passed on to Luke and what should not. Less important for the present - but for what came later?

“You knew that I was born of Tatooine,” he said. “How?”

“The desert leaves its mark on its children,” Alkamar replied. “On the spirit, not the flesh.”

“Can it be removed?” Bad enough to be reminded of the planet of his birth, worse to know it had stamped some kind of signature on him, one that he had not even been aware of until this present moment. 

“Why is that something you desire?” Alkamar’s gaze was sharp, penetrating. What else might she see that he did not want known? But he had begun this, perhaps foolishly, perhaps not. 

“I do not know what Tatooine was in your time, Arkanii,” he replied. “But now it is nothing more than a wasteland filled with pirates, criminals and other scum. The Hutts rule it - the old Jedi Order and the Republic never cared to remedy the situation.”

“So the children of the desert have become slaves again…” Alkamar sighed, looked away. Vader remained quiet despite his desire to demand that she explain that statement - he sensed that if he waited she would speak of her own accord. “Years before my people ever arrived in the sector the histories say that the natives of Tatooine were imprisoned under the whips of a vast and evil Empire - one that came from the stars and which set the skies aflame when the people rebelled against them and forced them to leave. But at least afterwards, for all the devastation, they were free. Free to join us, to become a welcome part of the alliance of the Arkanii. And now you tell me that once the Jedi killed us - removed the protection we represented - they became slaves again?”

“The natives of Tatooine… the Jawas? The Tusken?” He could feel the rage hovering in his throat, edging each word with a growl. The synth-leather of his gloves creaked as his hands formed unconscious fists. 

“Yes.”

“The Hutts enslaved the humans, the rodians, the twi’leks - the _civilised_ species!” Vader snarled. “Why bother with your _previous_ natives - little more than animals! No; _those_ they allow to roam free preying on innocent lives, when it were better they _should_ be caged!”

“Who did you lose?” Alkamar asked him softly. 

“It is no concern of yours,” Vader replied, and banished the flame of the Light with a flicker of his wrath. The holocron sank back into itself, become no more than crystal and metal. 

Why should he care about the history of Tatooine if it was no more than the history of wild beasts and savages? Their legends were not the legends of _his_ people, the ones his mother had whispered to him at night. He would not speak of this again - not to Alkamar, not even to Luke. 

Yet he still stored the holocron away again safely. It might still be of some use, even if not for this.

\----

**1 ABY - ISD- _Annihilator_ , Shu-Torun, several weeks later**

“You have done well, Lord Vader.” 

“It is for the glory of the Empire.” He could read nothing in Sidious’ words or expression. Yet he could not prevent the worry that his former Master already knew everything. That a trap awaited in his future. In the absence of evidence however, all that could be done was to prepare, to anticipate, and hope that it was enough.

“Now that Shu-Torun has been brought to heel, perhaps you have begun to make up for your failure on the Death Star.”

“Master?” It was nigh-intolerable to still call Sidious by that title, but he could bear it for now. It would not be so much longer before that state of affairs would cease. 

“It is time for you to go to Fondor and take command of the first of our new weapons - of your _Executor_. Once it is complete you shall receive new orders.”

“It shall be as you will it,” Vader said, bowing his head. The holo-transmission ended, shut off from the Emperor’s end. Could it really be as simple as that? He had expected to have to work to be granted the privilege of _Executor_ , but Sidious had handed it to him easily. Too easily? He could not begin to guess what was in the Emperor’s mind. 

His hand fell to the belt pocket containing the Arkanii holocron. He could not have risked reaching out for anything other than the Dark Side in his former Master’s presence, but since that first occasion where he had touched the embers of the Light it had become a… comfort, of sorts, to do so. It reminded him of Luke, half a galaxy away. 

He had not opened the holocron again, trusting neither his temper or the ghost of the woman within. Nor would it be safe to do so now that he was back on board _Annihilator_. Tagge’s vessel was undoubtedly monitored, even in Vader’s own quarters - _particularly_ in his quarters. Every move he made would be watched, anything of note reported to the Emperor. 

That would change once _Executor_ was his. The plans for the vessel had always been as command ship of a specialised task-group, and even if there was a trap to come Vader was still too useful to Sidious to change that. Death Squadron would be handed over to him along with his impending orders and he had not been idle - Aphra had been investigating which ships those might be, and making contact with their Captains. Sidious would gift him the core of the military that would be turned against him.

Unless it was a trap. But Vader had survived traps before. This one would be no different.

\----

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ docked above Fondor, Tapani Sector**

This was the day their commanding officer would finally be coming aboard. Captain Piett glanced at his fellow officers waiting in _Executor’s_ main hanger for the shuttle transferring Lord Vader over from Grand General Tagge’s _Annihilator_. The Emperor had already sent his own man to act as Admiral of the taskforce they would be joining once the finishing touches were made to _Executor’s_ construction. Piett hadn’t known Kendal Ozzel for more than a few days but he already despised him. He was a rich, arrogant bastard from Caridia with a polished Core accent and a constant sneer directed at those whom he saw as lesser than him. Which included Piett, for all that Lord Vader had chosen him specifically. 

It was considerably easier to avoid being riled by the man when Piett knew what the future held - namely the treason which Lord Vader planned and which he was a party to. He very much doubted Ozzel would go along with it, which would naturally lead to his elimination. _That_ would give Piett great pleasure. 

The other senior officer on board was Major-General Maximilian Veers, who would be commanding all of _Executor’s_ ground forces, both infantry and armoured assault in the form of the AT-AT walkers the man was reputedly so fond of. Veers was a tall man, muscular and serious, and like Piett himself appointed here on Lord Vader’s favour alone. Veers also lacked the aristocratic connections that were the surer path to career advancement in the Empire’s military. Piett had hopes that this would change when Vader took over - in all his research concerning the man in the months since meeting his agent, he had found that Vader had little respect for nobility or politicians as a general rule. Still, who knew what the man had been like before whatever unknown accident had landed him in that life-support suit - he could be nobility himself as easily as a nobody. 

Also in the group were a number of the junior officers. All competent enough - almost the first duty Piett had been asked to fulfil once the orders had come transferring him to the Captaincy of _Executor_ was appointing the rest of the command staff. He had also vetted them for views sympathetic to his own, and to Lord Vader’s. Not that he had yet broached the subject with any of them - discussion of treason was not simply started over a cup of caf in the officer’s mess - but he felt confident that most of them would see the sense in supporting Lord Vader when the time came.

The shuttle was coming in to land. Piett stood sharply to attention, as did the rows of stormtroopers that made up the honour guard. Merely a fraction of this vessel’s eventual complement, but the rest would not be picked up until the ship was space-worthy - an event still two weeks away. As the shuttle touched down and the ramp hissed open he tried not to allow himself to show any sign of nerves. Vader was… a worrying individual. 

And then the man himself strode out and onto the hanger deck. He was just as tall as the COMPNOR propaganda made him look; Piett had assumed it was exaggerated for effect. He swept past the troopers, impassive in that suit of black armour, cape flaring behind him, until he joined their small group of officers. 

“Admiral Ozzel,” Vader said. “Captain Piett. General Veers.” The noise of his respirator seemed far louder than it had any need to be. An intimidation tactic? If so it worked just as well on Piett as on Rebels.

“Lord Vader,” Ozzel replied, with a smart salute. “A pleasure to welcome you on board.”

“Does construction remain on schedule?” Vader asked. Ozzel was caught wrong-footed; clearly he had been expecting more niceties before getting down to business. Fool. 

“Ah, yes… there have been no issues whatsoever.”

Which was a lie - there had been plenty of issues, because that was simply the natural course of events when building a vessel of this size, except that Ozzel clearly had neither the experience or knowledge to be aware of that. Vader stared at him for a moment - or at least that’s what Piett assumed he was doing. Impossible to tell behind the mask. “Show me,” he ordered. 

Ozzel was beginning to sweat. “Surely, my lord, you would like to get settled in first… an official tour of the ship would be best organised when she is at her best, that is, when she is complete…”

“Admiral, you begin to try my patience,” Vader said. Piett allowed himself a very faint smile. 

Ozzel clearly did not want to admit that he was not yet familiar enough with _Executor_ to give any kind of tour. Instead he turned towards Piett, snapping his fingers at him. “You there - Captain Piett. Lead us on a tour for his lordship’s benefit.”

Piett carefully did not react in any way other than to bow slightly. “As you wish, sir. If we proceed first to the bridge...” Thank the Force for future planning. He knew exactly what would satisfy Lord Vader - and save them all walking up and down nineteen kilometres of corridors. He had not been thinking of his new commander in any way when he had designed the holo-program in the command centre, in fact it had been intended only as a visual aid to monitor progress for himself, however it would serve admirably for this purpose as well. 

No-one spoke on the long turbolift journey to their destination. Ozzel might have made an attempt under other circumstances, but Lord Vader’s abrupt manner had put him off balance. Piett went over tables of information in his head; tons of durasteel plating shipped, reactor output, kilowatts thrown by a turbolaser barrage… The doors hissed open and they stepped out into the corridor leading to the bridge - itself little bigger than that of a standard Star Destroyer. Piett approved - it made it a smaller target. 

Piett led them left instead of right, away from the bridge itself and into a room with a holotable. Ozzel bristled. “What is the meaning of this Piett…”

“As part of my duties here these weeks past,” Piett said quickly, “I took the liberty of constructing this.” He tapped a few icons, and then Executor was hovering in the air in front of them. “Finished components are in blue - those which still require work are in red. The file is accessible by the foremen of the crews so that it can be updated at the end of each day. As you can see, most of what is left is only non-essential components; interior furnishings, some areas of the hull plating, tuning and synchronisation of the weapons systems to bring them into full integration with the bridge systems…”

“Well done, Captain Piett,” Lord Vader said. Piett tried not to look too smug. He could read the hate in Ozzel’s eyes, but the man could do nothing about it after Lord Vader’s praise. “I note the reactors themselves are not yet online.”

“There’s still some testing to be done on the power conduits,” Piett explained. “They’re of a new design…”

“I am aware,” Vader replied. “I designed them myself. They will hold. You will give the order to bring the reactors online after we have finished reviewing this projection.”

Piett nodded sharply. Well… if the conduits _did_ fail, at least they had deniability - although they likely wouldn’t survive to offer their excuses to the Emperor. “Yes, m’lord. Which area would you like to begin with?”

\----

**1 ABY - Bast Castle, Vjun, Nuiri Sector, Outer Rim**

_Red-bladed lightsabers in the dark. Ships burning in the heavens. Flashes of green light scoring across the black expanse of space, illuminating the face of a man standing on the bridge of a Star Destroyer. His father, cape flaring around him. Fighting. Where was Luke in all this? He looked around for himself, but saw nothing. Flickers of sound; boots pounding on durasteel floors, faces he did recognise - Leia, Han, Ezra’s friends whom he had only even seen before in a vision._

_What was this?_

_As though hearing him, the images changed again. He saw a planet laid out below him and above it rings and belts of metal; machinery, docks, platforms, all the interlocking pieces of an orbital shipyard. Under his feet stretched a vast grey surface seeming to go on for miles, only interrupted by the humps and hillocks of turbolasers and ion cannons. Behind him rose what at first appeared a city of its own, before he realised it was part of this… this massive_ ship.

_‘What are you trying to tell me?’ he asked the Force. Was this a place that already existed? Was this the future? The past?_

_Things were already moving, changing in front of his eyes, but it was so choppy, so disorganised, that he couldn’t make any sense of it. Luke saw more flashes of his father, locked in combat with strangers in black… Inquisitors. Red lightsabers. Their shoulders marked with the Imperial cog. One stood back, raised a hand._

_From their fingers lightning crackled. It sparked over Vader’s armour. For a moment he was caught in it - but a moment was enough._

_Luke screamed._

And woke up. 

He had… been dreaming. But that was not any normal dream. He knew enough of the touch of the Force to know that. It had been a vision, just like those the temple had shown him, and instinctively he recognised it as something that had not yet come to pass. But it would. It was the future, as it would exist if he did nothing. 

Luke leapt out of bed, dressing himself as fast as he could. He had to do something. He had to go to… wherever that vast ship was being built, go there and do… what? Warn his father? Be there to join the fight, to protect him from that attack the likes of which he had never seen before? He didn’t know yet, only that he didn’t have much time. 

He stormed out into the main room and stopped. Ezra was waiting for him, still in sleeping clothes, hair in disarray and eyes wide. “What was that?” he asked. “I felt it in the Force - coming from _you_. What’s going on?”

“My father’s in trouble,” Luke told him. “I… there was a vision. We need to leave; we need to warn him.” Yes, it made sense to take Ezra with him. If there was some kind of fight coming, then two Force-users _had_ to be better than one. 

“Lord Vader…? Surely it’s nothing he can’t handle on his own?” 

Luke shook his head. “No… no, I saw it. Other Inquisitors - too many of them and… one of them used this lightning from his hands.”

Ezra paled. “Force lightning,” he said. “That’s something only the Grand Inquisitor is taught how to do - although technically only Lords of the Sith are meant to know how to use it. If you had a vision like that… then it must mean Lord Sidious knows about your plans to kill him.”

“We need to find Commander Dogma,” Luke said. “I saw this place… a shipyards. Building something massive. He might know about it - or he might know who would.”

By this point Luke knew the castle well enough to be able to find his way to the clone troopers’ barracks. He left their quarters at a run, disturbing the pair of hssiss outside the door. They raised their heads to watch him pass, snapping irritably at his heels, and then at Ezra’s command they were on their feet and following. Luke ignored them. Learning to live with those two creatures had been… interesting to say the least ever since Ezra brought them back from the hunting trip, but Ezra had explained their connection with the Dark Side, the reason they had almost attacked them, and since then the hssiss had been pleasant and obedient. Luke didn’t mind their presence. 

They reached the barracks quickly with the Force speeding their run. Luke didn’t even bother to knock before he burst through into the room. Dozens of faces turned towards him. “Where’s Commander Dogma?” Luke called out. “It’s important!”

“He’s got his own quarters,” someone said - Luke wasn’t sure who. The clones were a lot harder to tell apart without the markings on their armour to go on. “C’mon, I’ll show you.”

They moved through unfamiliar corridors at speed; Luke was too focused on the worried thoughts running through his head to really take in where they were going. How much time did they have? Was he going to be able to stop this? Then they were in front of another door and the clone was knocking on it respectfully. “Commander Dogma!” he called, “Commander Skywalker to see you.”

Luke would have protested the rank, but now wasn’t the time. 

The door slid open and Dogma’s face appeared with its instantly recognisable tattoo. He glared at them. “This is very irregular - but I suppose you have a good reason for it, sir.”

“I had a vision,” Luke told him. 

Dogma nodded. “Force business. I understand sir; what do you need?”

“I saw… a planet. Shipyards. Building something… massive. A kind of Star Destroyer I’ve never even heard about before,” Luke explained. He tried to calm his racing mind enough to be coherent, to avoid speaking too fast and stumbling over his own words. “I need to go there - as soon as possible!”

Dogma’s eyes widened. “This is about Lord Vader, isn’t it?” he said. “That’s the ship he helped design - she’s being built at Fondor. It’s some distance away, just outside the Inner Core.”

“Dogma, please! I need to leave; my father’s in danger if I don’t!”

“Fine.” The Commander shook his head. “I shouldn’t be doing this… but I’ll get you a ship. But there’s no way you’re going along. I’ll muster up a few squads - we’re coming with you.”

Luke wasn’t going to argue if it meant he could get to Fondor all the quicker. 

“If there’s anything you need to pack, do it now,” Dogma told them. “Fox, with me. We’ll gather the troops and meet you in hanger Besh in half an hour.”

Luke nodded, allowing himself to relax ever so slightly. This had gone better than he’d hoped. 

\----

**1 ABY - YT-1300 _Millenium Falcon_ , en route to Fondor**

Leia still hadn’t told High Command everything. The moment they had returned to known space she had contacted them of course, and she had told them that they had been right about Vader, about who he really was, but… she hadn’t mentioned her own connection to the man. She had thought about it, but in the end she had backed away, too afraid of their reaction. It was still sinking in for all of them… and she noted no-one had brought up Luke in a while. That concerned her. He had been in Vader’s clutches for months now, and although she was sure she would have felt it if he had turned to the Dark Side, Command didn’t know her brother like she did. To put more doubt into their heads now… 

Perhaps she was being a coward, but if so, she would happily take that label. 

She had also explained why she had been gone so long. Captain Syndulla had already mentioned it when she acted courier for their earlier transmission, but as Leia had anticipated, High Command had more questions. They wanted to know all about Ahsoka, what had happened and where she had been all these years. How Leia had found out that she herself was able to use the Force. She had put them off with deflections and vague half-truths. None of it was _important._ None of it was mission-relevant - although she had needed to explain who Captain Rex was. The clone had volunteered to come along, ‘to face his old General’, leaving his two brothers behind to continue helping Ahsoka. 

He wouldn’t have to wait too long, Leia suspected. Intelligence was equivocal about whether Vader had taken command of his new ship yet, although leaning towards that he had. Leia was sure he was there though. Ahsoka’s training had made her aware of him, in the way that you could be aware of thunderclouds brewing on the horizon. Vader was darkness and shadow, and he was at Fondor. 

And then they were sliding out of hyperspace alongside three flights of starfighters; X-wings, A-wings and Y-wings, plus _Ghost_ and the light cruiser _Unbroken_ that with the _Falcon_ compromised their boarding party. In front of them the planet loomed large, ringed by the complex mechanisms of Fondor Shipyards - and in amongst it all, a nineteen kilometer dagger of blued durasteel. Leia smiled to herself, fierce and sharp. 

The fighter wings peeled away from them, arcing towards the shipyards at a speed only the _Falcon_ could match. Point defence batteries started up, spewing their lines of green death into the sky, ignoring the cruisers for now. The Alliance fighters replied with their own fire. No specific targets had been allocated to them; their only aim here was to cause as much chaos and damage as possible.

“Guess this is it,” Han said, mostly to himself. 

As they approached _Executor_ , Leia was able to start to appreciate just how large the vessel was. She had never seen anything like it - she had been in a windowless shuttle for her transfer from _Devastator_ to the Death Star, and then in a cell from that point onwards. She had never seen it from close up. During the escape in the _Falcon_ she had been too distracted by the TIE-fighters to take in the vast station they were leaving behind. But this… it was mile upon mile of durasteel, featureless from a distance but more and more complex the further they came towards it. 

_Executor’s_ main docking bay was straight ahead. At every moment Leia expected the ship’s guns to start up, but they lay dead and unmoving. As they had hoped - they weren’t yet functional, or if they were then not calibrated for ships this small and at such close range. Nor had the Imperial vessel received its complement of TIE-fighters, because their screens remained wholly clear of any sensor readings that might suggest they were under attack. Everything was going entirely to plan. 

The docking bay was full of stormtroopers, but the _Falcon_ and _Ghost_ made short work of them, clearing enough space for _Unbroken_ to land. Alliance commandos spilled out as the landing ramps slammed onto the deck, firing as they went, taking cover behind the light cruiser’s bulk. 

“Time to get out there,” Leia ordered. Chewbacca roared in agreement, grabbing his bowcaster as he rose from the co-pilot’s chair, hitting the ramp release on the way. Han sighed - it was just nerves, no more or less than any of them had. Leia could feel it bouncing around the inside of his mind. That was just one side effect of learning how to use the Force; being far more in tune with the emotions of everyone around you. 

Captain Rex joined them at the top of the landing ramp, wielding an ancient but still viciously functional Clone Wars DC-15S blaster carbine, as well as a pair of DC-17 pistols holstered at his waist. His armour was uncomfortably close to current stormtrooper armour, but all that blue paint was noticeable enough that nobody would be shooting the wrong side. “Ready?” Leia asked him.

“Born ready sir.”

Outside it was organised chaos. Blaster fire filled the air, leaving that characteristic ozone tang behind it. If Leia focused, she could feel the bright sparks of the stormtroopers on the far side of the hanger, as well as the way those sparks snuffed out as they died. She focused, aimed, fired. They had been expecting resistance; they were ready for this. 

Gradually the enemy fire began to die down. The troopers were drawing back into the nearby corridors, setting up choke points, hoping to stop them there until reinforcements could arrive - which wouldn’t be long. Their time here was limited, so they had better get a move on. 

“Form up!” she shouted. “Bridge team, on me! Engine team, with Captain Syndulla! We’re pushing forwards!”

She cast her mind out further, reaching, searching… a vast dark cloud, a dread and terrifying presence, which as she beheld it turned and looked at her. She felt Vader’s attention, all of his focus suddenly diverted onto this one point. Something beckoned, as though holding out a hand for her. 

_Leia…_

She slammed up her shields, layer upon layer like the towering mountains of Alderaan. Her hand - the false one, the one she had because of _him_ \- tightened into a fist. He was here. Vader was here. 

That was what she had wanted, but equally Leia couldn’t deny that there was some part of her that was nearly afraid. The part of her that held only memories of pain. She ignored it, did her best to calm it with the Force. She hadn't yet mastered the concept of releasing emotions but she could at least not let them affect her - although that was nothing new for her. 

Han and Chewie at her back, Alliance soldiers following behind, she led them on into the ship towards their enemy.

\----

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , above Fondor**

Piett was on the bridge when the attack came. 

The other senior officers had retired to their quarters after the virtual tour, and Lord Vader had done the same, although in his case it was to supervise the final installation of some kind of hyperbaric chamber. Piett could guess as to why it was required, but he tried his best not to think about it too loudly. There were numerous rumours as to the extent of Vader’s Force powers, including those that claimed he was able to read the minds of those around him, but it was all no more than speculation. Even those who knew something of the old Jedi - forbidden topic though _that_ was - could not be sure how different it might be with… whatever Vader was. 

As such only a sparse crew and a few lieutenants were present when their sensors went wild with the signals of dozens of unknown ships coming out of hyperspace - and then even wilder when their codes identified them as vessels of the Rebel Alliance. 

For a very brief moment Piett closed his eyes and cursed the galaxy. Then he composed himself and began issuing orders. 

“Sound battle stations,” he snapped. “And make sure to get on the ship-wide comms to emphasise that this is _not_ a drill. Lieutenant Jutai, see if you can bring our weapons systems online and if not, throw all power into the shields. Lieutenant Avin, get General Veers and have him mobilise whatever troops we have available and get them to the main docking bay.” If they meant to board them, then that was the only place big enough for all three of their larger ships. He had thought earlier that Vader’s order to bring the main reactors online was rather premature and not a little risky but now he was thankful for it. Had Lord Vader anticipated something like this happening?

Piett strode over to the sensor terminals to get a better view of their attackers. Three wings of starfighters, two freighters and a light cruiser - insufficient firepower to bring _Executor_ down even had she been entirely without power and dead in space, but that was not going to be their aim. Already the fighters were peeling off onto a vector which would bring them over the heavy-duty construction equipment adjacent to the docks. It was a distraction - one aimed at Fondor’s native defences. The shipyards were their livelihood - they would prioritise them even in the face of the Empire’s potential wrath.

“The Admiral is on his way, sir,” one of the junior officers told him, breaking his concentration. Piett struggled to contain his reaction. That was _just_ what they all needed. He had not had a chance to examine Ozzel’s service record in any detail, he had no idea how capable or not the man might be. But Piett knew himself and trusted his own abilities more than those of an unknown. Too many of the top brass were little more than the Emperor’s yes-men with barely an ounce of skill to their names for him to do otherwise. 

“Very well,” he answered. “However we cannot afford to wait for his arrival. Has Lord Vader also been notified?”

“Yes sir.” 

Piett nodded sharp acknowledgement and returned to viewing the three ships left approaching them. Damn the rebels, they had chosen the perfect time for their attack. Much later and _Executor_ would be fully operational, with her full complement of TIEs, troopers and staff, and any attempt to board her would have been utterly doomed. As it was they could do nothing until the enemy was already on board.

From the Captain’s position on the central platform between the two bridge wells, he had an overview of every screen, every terminal, every member of the command crew. In a true battle it would be invaluable, but in this situation there was no need for the bigger picture, for indeed none existed. Piett watched the three ships swoop low over _Executor’s_ hull and make their approach to the main docking bay, disappearing inside. 

“Is General Veers in position?” he asked. 

Lieutenant Avin shook his head. “The troops are still being mustered sir. A detachment was already present in the hanger, however they are taking heavy casualties.”

“Sir…” The same junior officer - Piett thought hard - yes, Ensign Olaran, spoke up, practically trembling. “Lord Vader states he is heading for the docking bay at present sir!” This, as he remembered, was the boy’s first real naval placement. Piett had chosen him on the basis of his excellent Academy scores, which were only marred - or in this case bolstered - by an essay he had written in cautious criticism of the late Moff Tarkin. 

“Captain Piett!” 

Piett turned, holding in a sigh and the curse that desperately wanted to escape his lips. Admiral Ozzel was approaching, and he looked none too pleased. 

“Admiral,” Piett said, with as much calm as he possessed. “As you can see we are presently under attack…”

“What is the meaning of this Captain?” 

Piett blinked. “I’m afraid I don’t take your meaning sir.”

“How dare you give orders without my prior approval!”

Piett’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t try and protest. So, Ozzel was one of _those_. A micromanager, which was being polite about it. He could have pointed out that waiting for the Admiral’s arrival would leave them decidedly on the back foot when dealing with the rebel assault, but Ozzel also did not seem like the kind of man who appreciated what he would undoubtedly call ‘back-talk’. And they had bigger problems. “My apologies sir,” he merely said. 

Ozzel shook his head with a dismissive snort. “Status update, Captain.”

“Three Rebel Alliance vessels have landed in our primary docking bay in an attempt to board us,” Piett said. “General Veers is mustering his stormtroopers for a counter-assault, and Lord Vader is intending to join him in this. Three wings of Alliance starfighters are strafing the shipyards, but…” he chanced a quick glance at the sensor terminal, “it appears that Fondor Shipyards is mounting an adequate defence against them.”

“Who is leading the rebel’s attack?” Ozzel demanded. 

“Lieutenant Avin, bring up the security feed from the hanger.” Piett examined the resulting images, obscured as they were by clouds of blaster-smoke. “It appears to be Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, Admiral,” he reported after a moment. To his surprise, Ozzel smiled. 

“Excellent,” the Admiral said. He pulled one of his code cylinders from his uniform, striding over to a comms terminal at the side of the bridge. He slid it home and unfamiliar aurebesh flickered over the screen too fast for Piett to make out. “It is as the Emperor foresaw.”

“Admiral?” 

“There’s no need for concern Captain,” Ozzel said, with unseemly cheer. “Reinforcements are on their way!”


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vader has some rebels to deal with, Piett is having a very bad day, Luke finds he has dropped into a very unfortunate situation, and an ambush is sprung.
> 
> All Mando'a curses etc. from [ here ]()

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , docked above Fondor, Tapani Sector**

She was here. His daughter. Vader had felt her presence the moment the ship carrying her had dropped out of hyperspace. The shock of recognition had been instantaneous despite the fact that something had changed about her. At their last meeting - the meeting where he had proven himself to be no fit father, where he had made that great and horrific mistake - Leia had not appeared to possess the least scrap of Force-sensitivity. Not so now. Now she had the feel of a Jedi Padawan - albeit one with very little experience. 

What had happened in the last few months? Where had his daughter been? Kenobi was dead, Vader had killed him himself, and there were no other Jedi remaining in the galaxy. It had been twenty years. No-one could hide that long. Except…

No. It was not true that there were no Jedi left. There was one… one whose life he himself had spared. 

He had not wanted to know where Ahsoka had fled after their duel. That had been for her sake and his own - it had been risk enough to lie to Sidious about her death, a lie backed up by trophies brought back from that battle; her twin white-bladed lightsabers, and the tips of her montraals. It had been more than sufficient evidence. His former Master had not cared enough to pry deeply into the matter, and thus it had been settled. But despite her grievous injuries, Ahsoka had survived. He had felt it. The tatters of the bond between them - master to padawan - had proved that. 

If she had been corrupting his daughter, then Vader was suddenly less certain that he should have permitted Ahsoka to live. His former padawan might have left the Jedi Order and escaped their corruption and scheming in the final months of the Clone War, but she had not escaped the poison of their teachings. He had not thought her _able_ to pass those teachings on - but clearly she had.

All of this was academic however. All that mattered was that his daughter was _here_ , that she had boarded _Executor_. Her motives were doing so were equally irrelevant to him. If she had come here hoping to strike a blow against the Empire she would be disappointed. Or perhaps she had come here to kill him. 

Under different circumstances, Vader would have allowed this. That revenge was no more or less than he deserved for what he had done to his own family. But he could not think only of his daughter - he must also think of what was best for his son. Luke had a destiny of his own, one that would change the galaxy for the better, and he required Vader alive to see that happen. He knew he would not be able to convince Leia of their cause himself, but if she were captured, if she were brought to Bast Castle, then she could speak to Luke. She would believe the truth from him. 

And what was the alternative? Now that she had begun training to use the Force she was no longer impenetrable to discovery - and not from Vader alone. Sidious would find her and Vader's lie to him would no longer hold up to scrutiny. Above all _that_ could not be allowed to happen. 

At present Leia was with her rebel allies in the primary docking bay. Vader strode at speed through the corridors towards her. He could feel her reaching out, _present_ in the Force… could feel the moment she sensed him too. He felt her anger and rage - and felt them dissipate as she shoved them down. Beneath the mask he snarled. Already the Jedi poison had left its mark. Already she was being taught to waste her potential. This could not be allowed to stand. There were others with her who felt familiar in the Force, but Vader had no time to examine them more closely. No doubt it was that smuggler friend of hers and his Wookie. They would not be of any consequence. 

Rounding a corner, Vader found himself mask to mask with a corridor full of orderly ranks of stormtroopers. They snapped into salute as soon as they registered his presence. From amongst their number a man in an officer’s uniform appeared, notable at least in the fact that he was nearly as tall as Vader himself, and saluted. 

“General Veers,” Vader said, recalling that this man had been present earlier upon his arrival. Perhaps the Force had guided his path - it was fortunate that he had encountered Veers before the General began the counter-offensive against the rebels. 

“My lord,” the General replied. “We shall soon have these rebel scum dealt with.”

“I want their leaders captured _alive_ ,” Vader ordered. “They may have valuable information.” Veers was not one whom Aphra had spoken to as of yet - Vader had arranged his presence on _Executor_ based on the balance of probability but when the stakes were as high as this it would not be wise to reveal more than was necessary. “One of them is the Alderaanian Princess, Commander Leia Organa.”

“As you wish, Lord Vader.” Veers turned and began barking orders to the troopers, marshalling them in preparation for the assault. Vader strode through the crowd, taking up a position at the head. He wanted nothing more than to continue on, to find his daughter, but the Force had led him here and it would be foolish not to listen to it. Better to proceed with stormtroopers at his back to deal with the rebel soldiers and leave Leia and her companions to him. 

“We’re ready to move out on your command,” General Veers told him. There was an eager light shining in the man’s eyes; Vader could read the desire for battle which suffused the top layers of his mind. Veers was a soldier because he enjoyed it - he led from the front whenever it was possible. He could appreciate the sentiment. 

Vader drew his lightsaber, although he did not ignite it yet. He nodded to Veers.

His daughter was no longer in the hangar bay. He could sense her moving, pushing onwards and upwards through the ship. Her target was no doubt the bridge - perfectly placed to do the most damage. He strode on, leading the troopers in his wake. They would cut the rebels off far before they reached the turbolift up. 

\----

Piett watched through the transparisteel barrier of the bridge’s forward window as three arrow-headed shapes slid out of hyperspace with such precision as to indicate a very carefully calculated jump. Three Imperial-class Star Destroyers - a force far out of proportion to the task it had apparently come to fulfil. This, for a small rebel boarding party that their own troopers could undoubtedly repel even without Lord Vader’s assistance? No. He could feel the blood chilling in his veins, the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. What else might the Emperor have foreseen? 

“Should I inform Lord Vader of the good new?” he asked, trying to keep his voice level. 

“There’s no need for that,” Ozzel replied dismissively. He too was staring out at the approaching ships. Piett had the sudden certainty that if he ordered a full sensor sweep they would find the Star Destroyers to be running weapons-hot… but they wouldn’t fire. Not yet. They would send over their own boarding parties. If the rot of treason could be cut out at the source then the first of the Empire’s new line of ships could be saved - _Executor_ was too expensive to be condemned out of hand. 

What could he do? He wasn’t the only one who suspected something amiss; he could read the confusion and uncertainty on the faces of each junior officer here. Piett was not naturally a rash man, and it was not in his nature to take action without having first made a proper consideration of all possible outcomes, however a kind of hopeless desperation was starting to tear at him. If he had been armed… but weapons were not a part of the officer’s uniform, and he hadn’t expected the kind of trouble that might require him to carry a concealed pistol. Not that killing Ozzel would do him any good - the damage had already been done. All that was left was to watch… and wait… and hope that just perhaps, Lord Vader had planned for something like this.

A number of shuttles and troop carriers had detached themselves from the capital ships, speeding ahead. If the Emperor _did_ know, then what would he have sent capable of killing Darth Vader? Piett could not even imagine such a thing being possible, and yet…

He had a very bad feeling about this.

\----

They were making good progress. Leia leaned around a corner, aimed and fired. Another stormtrooper dropped with a hole burned neatly through his chest. She ducked aside again as her fire was returned, red bolts snapping against the walls. It felt almost suspicious. She had been expecting more resistance than this. 

“Cover me,” she said to Captain Rex, who nodded, expression hidden behind his helmet. She closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind of the distractions of the fight, and dropped into the Force. It wasn’t so very different to what she had been doing all these years to conceal herself. That had involved making herself a part of the Force - now she was just _aware_ that she was doing it. The shadow of Vader was everywhere, making it difficult to see, like dark clouds obscuring the sun. But she could feel, underneath, that there was a concentration of what she had come to think of as particularly stormtrooper minds massing elsewhere in the ship - and not so very far away. In fact that mass was moving - it was moving towards _them_.

Leia’s eyes snapped open again. “We’ve got a problem,” she shouted to the rest of the group. “Bucketheads coming this way!”

“Tell us something we don’t know Princess!” Han yelled back. Chewbacca growled, and sent a bowcaster bolt rocketing down the corridor ahead of them to explode with an concussive impact. Leia felt the air shudder. Someone screamed - but not one of their own. 

“We have to press on!” Leia shouted. “We have to get to the bridge before these reinforcements arrive!”

Something shivered in the Force. It wasn’t Vader, it wasn’t even from on board _Executor_ , although she didn’t know how she knew that. Leia looked up, trying to catch at whatever it had been… but it was gone. Vader’s presence was too much for her to break through. 

The strike force made a run for it down the corridor, breaking cover. Chewie’s bolt had done enough damage that there were only a few troopers left to mop up. Leia went over the plans of the ship which she had memorised, thinking. All of these passages were alike… but she had the Force and she let it guide her. “This way.”

\----

His daughter was near. Her presence was all that Vader could focus on, a burning fire in the Force so similar to Luke, yet far more vast, spread-out, almost insidious in the way it permeated everything around her. Luke’s was more concentrated, which made him feel stronger, but Vader was not fooled. His daughter was strong in the Force _indeed_ now that she was no longer hiding it. 

They were very close now. For a moment he felt his attention drawn away by something else, some vague premonition of danger, a wave within the Force… but it was immaterial. Whatever it was paled into insignificance when his daughter was just around the next bend in this corridor…

_There._

The moment the rebels became aware of his presence they stopped in their tracks. He felt the ripples of their fear - even in his daughter. A pang of sudden pain caught him, but he turned it in upon itself, using it to feed the Dark Side. Gathering their wits the rebels opened fire, but Vader ignored them, flicking their blaster bolts aside as he approached. Behind him the stormtroopers fanned out under Veer’s orders, setting up lines of fire to left and right that forced the rebels to cluster together. He paid them little heed, not caring whether they lived or died. All of his attention was focused on Leia.

His daughter holstered her blaster and drew a pair of lightsabers from inside her open jacket. Vader was displeased to see that she had picked up the reverse shoto grip from his old apprentice. This was what came of allowing another to train his children. Bad habits. She ignited the blades, blue and green, and approached him with caution. It was not by any means an ideal environment for a saber duel - not that he had any intention of duelling his daughter. 

“Leia,” he said. “Stand down. Your attack has failed - it is pointless to continue this fight.”

“You are a fool Vader if you think any of us will give up that easily!” his daughter replied, and darted forwards. He parried her attacks with ease. Ahsoka might have told her how to hold a blade, but it was clear that had been the limits of her teaching. Leia was not much better a duellist now than she had been on Vrogas Vas. Only the Force itself was lending her the skill to stand against him. 

“This battle is already lost,” he said. Then - knowing none save the two of them was near enough to hear it over the sounds of battle -“I understand your anger my daughter, but…”

“Don’t dare lay that kind of claim on me!” Leia snapped. “My father was Bail Organa of Alderaan! _You_ are nothing but a monster!” The rage was building in her now - in the heat of battle she was clearly giving little thought to Jedi teachings. The Dark Side whipped around her, offering itself up and eager to be used. 

Durasteel plating shuddered around them; walls, ceiling and floor. Vader felt the wild energy in the Force all around them, but it was unfocused. If Leia had been trained for longer he had no doubt that she would be tearing the very ship apart to find weapons to throw at him – but she was not fully aware of what she was capable of. Which was all the better for him. 

“Enough of this.” He would not be so careless or callous again in the way that he disarmed her. Vader stepped out of the way of another attack and lashed out, catching Leia’s wrist in his hand and applying pressure. He felt cybernetics buckle in his grip - his own might be crude but they were also powerful. His daughter let out a sharp cry and dropped the saber. She swung wildly with the shoto and he let go, stepping back. Leia cursed, holding the arm in towards her chest. 

“It wasn’t enough the first time?” she snarled. 

The sounds of blaster fire had begun to die down all around them. Weight of numbers had taken its toll on the rebel attackers. “If you want your friends to live,” he told her, “you will surrender to me.”

“Anyone here would gladly give their life to help bring down the Empire,” Leia replied, tone sharp. 

Vader stepped back. “General Veers,” he said. “Have your troops set their blasters to stun.”

If she had still had both lightsabers, his daughter might have succeeded in fending off the blasts. But strong as she was, she could not last long against such sustained fire. Eventually a stun bolt clipped her shoulder and she dropped to the floor. 

Vader surveyed the battlefield. Blaster bolts had scorched and pitted the durasteel in every direction, and filled the air with smoke. Bodies lay everywhere, rebel and stormtrooper alike, most dead but some merely stunned. Veers had evidently made sufficient effort to see his orders carried out. He clipped his lightsaber back onto his belt, Leia’s pair joining it. 

“Secure the prisoners,” he ordered. Around him stormtroopers saluted and hurried to the task. As he had suspected, there was Solo and his Wookie, and… 

Vader gently tilted the head of the man in GAR armour to examine the markings more closely. Blue jaig eyes, kill tally… how? He had thought Rex long dead. He had looked for him, looked ever since he had vanished just before Order 66. And now he was here. Stunned, but still alive. 

There would be _questions_. 

\----

The shuttle journey seemed to stretch out endlessly. Luke did his best to let time pass more swiftly by meditating, but all that the Force seemed to be telling him was that there was danger ahead. He tried his best to call up the vision he’d had before, but he could see nothing more than what he had already been shown. Finally he gave up when the chrono showed that it wouldn’t be much longer before they came out of hyperspace. He rose and went through to the cockpit to join Commander Dogma and their pilot, Diver. Artoo was here as well, and the little astromech warbled a greeting to him. 

Keeping to plan, it wasn’t long before they emerged above Fondor, and Luke’s eyes went wide at the sight spread out beneath them. Not just the background of the planet itself and the rings of shipyards which surrounded it - he had seen them before in the Force - but because his father’s _Executor_ was not the only Imperial ship here. 

“What are those Star Destroyers doing there?” he asked, staring at the three sleek dagger-shapes keeping place a few hundred kilometers from _Executor’s_ hull. 

“No idea, sir,” Dogma replied, sounding no more happy. “But they’re going to want to know why _we’re_ here in a moment.”

“Well… we’ve got Imperial codes, haven’t we?” 

Dogma nodded. “Yes sir, but I have a feeling that Lord Vader’s codes won’t get us the result that we want here. I know my General, and there’s only one way he could be in enough danger for the Force to send you running. Someone on our side has got it in for him.”

Artoo spat something filthy in binary that Luke didn’t even make an attempt to translate for himself. He watched the Imperial ships unhappily. Looking closer, he could see that they had released shuttles and transports, all of which appeared to be heading for _Executor_. Parts of Fondor Shipyards were damaged, and by the way that tiny green and red lights flashed against the dark durasteel far away, some sort of fight was still ongoing there. But it wasn’t why Luke had come here. 

He reached out through the Force... and ran into a mass of shadows and darkness that seemed to cover _everything_. He could feel Vader, sense him, but he couldn't make contact even through their bond. It wasn't anything his father was doing, Luke was sure of that. Uncertainty and fear made his resolve shudder, just for a moment. Then he got a hold of himself. This, whatever it was, didn't matter. All it meant was that he had to hurry.

“Head for _Executor_ ,” he said. “As fast as possible. We just have to hope that they’re too busy with what they’re doing to notice us in time to stop us.”

He could feel the faint disbelief from both the clones, but they didn't argue. Then a thought occurred to him. “Wait… what about Ezra?”

Dogma looked thoughtful. “The Inquisitor probably isn’t known to be working for Lord Vader yet… it’s possible they might accept that he would have some kind of legitimate business here. Bring him through, and let’s hope fate favours us.”

For a while it seemed that Luke’s original idea was going to pay off and they might be able to make it through unnoticed. But then their comms lit up with an incoming hail. Luke nodded to Ezra, who leaned over and answered it. 

“Shuttle _Septima_ , this is a restricted area,” the Imp on the other end of the channel said. “What is your business here?”

“This is the Twelfth Brother of the Inquisitorius,” Ezra replied. “Transmitting my codes now.”

There was silence. Then the same voice said, albeit with a tinge of suspicion, “You are clear to proceed.”

“I was almost hoping that _wouldn’t_ work,” Ezra said, exchanging a worried glance with Luke. Luke nodded. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I saw Inquisitors in my vision. This just means they really are here - and they’re here for my father.” It only confirmed what he had suspected after sensing the clouding in the Force.

“Most of them could never be a threat,” Ezra said, clearly trying to be reassuring. “Lord Vader trained most of them at least partly, after all. The Grand Inquisitor is the only one we really need to stop.”

“You think the others would back down afterwards?”

“If they don’t, they’ll die,” Ezra replied. 

Luke didn’t say anything. He hoped they would be reasonable. He didn’t _want_ them dead. Had any of them ever had any choice about becoming what they were? Of course he wouldn’t let that sympathy cloud his mind and judgement, or stop him from doing what he had to - but only if he was left with no other option. 

Diver brought their shuttle in towards a smaller hanger which seemed to have been mostly overlooked by the other assault craft, and brought them in for a gentle landing. Luke disembarked along with roughly a score of clones. The place seemed deserted. 

“Artoo, can you find us a map of the ship?” Luke asked. Artoo beeped an affirmative and wheeled over to a nearby access port and plugged in. Luke waited for the droid to do his work, trying not to worry. What if they weren’t up to this? What if all he achieved by coming here was to make things worse, to get everyone killed? 

Next to him, Ezra suddenly stiffened. “I feel… something,” he said softly. “There’s someone here I know… no, more than one person.” 

“Can you tell whereabouts they are?” Luke asked. 

“Down from here,” Ezra said. “And towards the back of the ship.”

“In my vision, my father was on the bridge. But…”

Ezra nodded. “I think there’s something I have to do. I’ll meet you back here?”

“Keep in touch over the comms,” Luke told him. “It’s a big ship and I have no idea how this is going to turn out.”

“I’ll be back before you know it.” Ezra grinned and sprinted away out of the hanger, the two hssiss following him like a pair of well-trained hounds. 

Luke sighed. “You got it yet Artoo?” he asked. Artoo beeped proudly and retracted his probe. “Great.” He made sure his saber was to hand, then nodded to Commander Dogma.

“You heard Commander Skywalker!” the clone said. “Let’s follow the droid.”

\----

Rex woke up to someone kicking him in the ribs. He groaned and tried to push them away but his arms wouldn’t move. A moment later he realised that this was because they were restrained behind his back. All he could do was try and roll out of the way, and even that was difficult because he _hurt_. A kriffing familiar pain - that every-muscle ache that stun bolts left behind. 

“ _Chakaar!_ ” he snarled at whoever was standing over him. Tilting his head to try and get a better view only gave him the impression of an officer’s uniform, and height. 

“Get him on his feet,” the Imp ordered. Hands gripped him and Rex found himself being lifted upright. He managed to get his feet under him before he embarrassed himself by falling over again. They’d left his bucket on, which seemed a little odd. There were stormies everywhere - and corpses too. Mostly Imps, but they hadn’t cared about using stun bolts on _everyone_. 

“Get your karking hands off me!”

Rex knew that voice well enough by now. He turned his head - ignoring the post-stun dizziness - to see that Commander Leia had been captured too, as well as Solo, Chewbacca and a few others. She was standing a bare meter away, supported by a couple of stormies. Given that she was smaller than him, if she hadn’t been Force-sensitive Rex would have been surprised that she was even conscious yet. They’d all been restrained, same as he had, and…

Rex had seen Darth Vader before, in holos. Never in the flesh. 

“General…” he said miserably, under his breath. Anakin had been… he’d been a good man to have by your side or leading the charge, and even though he’d known that the two were one and the same even now it didn’t seem entirely possible. Vader seemed much bigger than Anakin ever had, and he held himself more stiffly. It might just be the armour but… There was also the rasping of that respirator, steady and endless. He’d thought it was just some kind of ringing in his ears, before he’d managed to get his head together and realise what was really causing it.

“You would be wise not to resist,” Vader was saying to his daughter - and even that was wrong! Anakin had never been so kriffing formal. “Your plan has failed.”

Leia only glared. There was still the strike team headed for engine control - provided they too hadn’t been found and captured or killed, but if they _hadn’t_ then no reason to draw attention to them. Vader turned away, addressing one of the Imp officers. 

“General Veers, escort the prisoners to the brig. These four,” Vader’s gesture encompassed Rex along with Leia, Solo and Chewie, to his surprise, “will be coming with me.”

The Wookie roared, but Captain Solo nudged him in the side and murmured something under his breath that shut him up. That was wise – this wasn't a situation they could fight their way out of, not like this.

“As you command,” the tall man said - although tall as he was, Vader was taller. Rex frowned. Something about that… wasn’t quite right. He _knew_ how many inches the General had on him… and Vader was standing close enough for him to draw the comparison and it was coming out _wrong_. 

Those Alliance commandos that were still alive were marched away down one of the featureless corridors, leaving only the four of them and Vader. Even the stormies that had been keeping them in place went, making Rex sway unsteadily before he caught his balance again. Which wasn’t exactly SOP when dealing with prisoners, although Rex wasn’t in much shape to be trying for an escape just yet. Besides, this was Vader they were talking about, and even as Anakin the man had been a force of nature.

“You should not have come here,” Vader said, surprising him. Rex had expected just to be marched off to… wherever. “There was no hope of your success.”

“Such arrogance,” Leia sneered. “This isn’t over yet.”

Vader ignored this taunt. “Your capture poses a problem,” he said. “It will not be possible to hide it from the Emperor.”

Solo let out a short, sharp laugh. “Why the hell would you wanna do that?” he asked. “Leia’s your ticket back into the old man’s good graces isn’t she?”

Rex wasn’t the least bit Force-sensitive, but even _he_ felt the temperature drop a little in response to that. _Some_ of the body language hadn’t changed at least - he knew when the General was angry. 

He needed to try not to think of Vader as the General - he wasn’t that man anymore - but it wasn’t easy. Before Ahsoka had told him the truth, he’d spent a long time mourning Anakin Skywalker. Afterwards it was just the nature of that mourning which changed. 

“Do not think I would give up my daughter so easily, pirate!” Vader snarled. Kriff - so he _did_ know. Or a better question - how _long_ had he known. Before he’d attacked Leia, mutilated her? Leia herself let a soft, disbelieving chuckle past her lips. 

“I had expected a _monster_ like you to deny it,” she said. 

The flinch was very, very small. If Rex hadn’t known Anakin Skywalker so well as he once had, he would have missed it. No, Rex decided, he hadn’t known before. He even regretted it. Not everything about him had changed. 

“The Emperor knows only that you are Force-sensitive,” Vader said, appearing to ignore Leia’s words. “He is unaware of your relationship to me – for now. When he discovers that you have been captured it will be his intent to send you to Mustafar to be trained if you are lucky. If you are not...”

“Don’t you kriffing dare!” Solo shouted, taking an unconscious step forwards before he realised just who he’d been trying to intimidate and went pale. Behind him his Wookie friend roared again, but Rex didn’t speak Shyriiwook – it could have been a curse or a challenge or simply wordless rage. 

“I do not intend to allow it,” Vader replied. “But it is clear you _must_ be trained, if only to remedy the errors passed on by my former padawan.”

“I will never turn to the Dark Side,” Leia said. “I will _never_ let myself become like _you_.”

“You are as stubborn as your brother,” Vader remarked. 

Leia drew her breath in sharply. “Where’s Luke?” she demanded. “What have you done to him!”

“Luke is far away from here, where he is _safe_. Unlike you. And it is too early to set our plans into motion.”

“What do you mean? What plans?”

But Vader didn’t seem to want to tell them anything more. Rex felt an invisible hand push firmly and inexorably between his shoulderblades, forcing him to walk forwards or fall. He got moving, and so did the others. Solo glanced at him, and sidled closer. 

“You’ve been very quiet,” he whispered. 

Rex only shook his head silently. This was an utter cluster-kriff they’d found themselves in - unarmed, imprisoned, deep behind enemy lines, and guarded by a man who was practically the equivalent of a battalion all by himself. There was a _reason_ the Jedi had been made the Generals of the GAR and it wasn’t because they were pretty-looking - although admittedly some of them _were_ very pretty-looking. 

Vader shoved them into a turbolift, leading to one hell of an awkward ride. Commander Leia was seething, practically trembling with her rage, although she kept taking in deep, slow breaths, trying to calm herself down. Which was for the best. Leia was smart; she’d be a good Jedi someday. She would never let her anger do Vader’s work for him. 

The doors hissed open onto what at first seemed only another corridor, until Rex was pushed out into it and could see where it led. The bridge. The design wasn’t so very different to the old Venators he had served on, he realised with an unpleasant twisting sensation in his gut. Several officers turned to look at them without surprise. Must’ve seen them coming on the cameras. Vader strode ahead of them, although not without that same firm Force presence at Rex’s spine that stopped him doing anything other than following obediently. 

There was something in one of the officer’s expressions. Something… off. Rex frowned. The man wasn’t even looking at them. He was looking off to the side, to where the bridge opened up around the end of the corridor… to an area that couldn’t be seen from the way they were approaching. His expression _seemed_ calm enough - but behind his eyes was the glaze of panic. 

Vader stopped. His lightsaber flew off his belt and into his hand. For a long moment Rex held his breath in anticipation, made sharp and prolonged by the sudden bite of adrenaline. Then came the attack. 

Figures in black leapt towards them, beams of red light igniting in their hands. Vader’s palm shot up towards Rex and the others and _pushed_. Rex felt himself go flying backwards, well out of the way of the battle that had begun. He lost sight of it for a moment, hit the ground, rolled - still with his hands restrained behind his back - and managed to stop facing back the way he’d come. 

He’d seen more than enough Inquisitors in his time with Ahsoka - he knew what they were. What didn’t make sense was what the kriff they were doing. They were the Empire’s good little Sith pets! No… they were the _Emperor’s_. What _exactly_ were those plans Vader had been talking about? 

Vader wasn’t having too much trouble with them. Rex had seen plenty of lightsaber duels in his time - the simple fact of it was that the Inquisitors weren’t that good. Ahsoka had told him that was by design; the Emperor was looking for pawns, not true apprentices. He only needed them to be acceptable, not excellent. Their only advantage was in their numbers, but he could see they had also never been trained to fight together. They were warriors, not soldiers. He sneered. Was this really meant to be a threat to General Skywalker, of all beings? 

The thought had barely crossed his mind when one of the Inquisitors stepped back and raised his hand. The others darted out of the way, and lightning split the air with a crack and the sharp stink of ozone. 

Vader blocked with his saber, sparks crackling around the blade, but he couldn't block all of it. Electricity snapped over the life-support control box. The ponderous wheeze of his respirator… stuttered. Vader took a staggering step back and slowly, fighting it all the way, he sank to his knees, only barely keeping himself upright with one hand splayed out on the durasteel floor. 

“Fierfek!” Rex swore, fighting at his restraints. It didn’t matter that Vader was their enemy, all his instincts, his training, his memories, were screaming at him to get over there and _help_. Somehow, Vader still had his lightsaber up, held at guard, but his grip was shaking. He was barely breathing, the occasional unsteady gasp. The Inquisitor smiled. It was predatory. The others stood back, letting him approach at a casual stroll that was a clear taunt. 

His saber flicked out. Vader tried to block, but he could no longer move fast enough. The blow cut through at mid-forearm. “And now,” the Inquisitor said, sneering, “you die. The Emperor will have a new apprentice.” 

He raised the red blade for a final blow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahaha cliffhanger ending. Because I just love all of you _that_ much.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Luke suffers the unintended consequences of reacting without thinking, Piett takes advantage of the situation, and Leia tries to make sense of this all this nonsense going on.

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , docked above Fondor, Tapani Sector**

Luke could feel his father's presence more strongly now that they were on board, and he followed it through the maze of corridors and passages at a run. All of that physical training had been good for something. That darkness was still drawn over the Force though; although too soft to be called a wall it had the same suffocating effect as being buried in sand. As much as he focused there didn't seem to be any way of breaking through it to warn Vader. All that he had been able to see were vague impressions. Vader had felt... distracted. Not just that, but also both satisfied and concerned. And there was another presence here as well, one which felt achingly familiar, yet Luke just couldn't work out why. 

The Inquisitors had to be on board. Whether just their presence had caused this fog, or it was by their specific design he didn't know, and he supposed it didn't matter. He had to find his father – it was the only way to warn him about what was coming.

They had made it to the bridge turbo-lift and were half-way up it when the Force started screaming at him. Luke flinched, and tried to control everything that was telling him to _move, now._ They were going as fast as possible. There simply _wasn't_ any way to get up there any faster. He could feel his father's rage and anger even through the cloud of the Dark Side – there wasn't much time.

“Sir?” Commander Dogma asked him, having noticed the movement. 

“Everyone be ready the moment we get up there,” Luke said, tightening his grip on his lightsaber. He had been holding it at the ready for their whole journey through the ship thus far, but he hadn't had any reason to use it yet. Any Imperials they had seen had taken note of the soldiers at his back and assumed he was meant to be here. His palms were sweating and his skin was sticky against the metal, but he didn't want to switch hands long enough to wipe the moisture away on his tunic. He had to be ready.

The lift halted. The doors slid smoothly open. Luke ignited the saber and stepped out, scanning his surroundings and then....

He saw, and he simply reacted. It wasn't a concious decision. He saw the Inquisitor standing over his father ready to strike and fear and anger and a protective rage welled up inside him bringing the Force with it. Luke flung out his hands. He might have screamed, he might have shouted, he didn't know. A wave of energy, of power, expanded outwards from him inexorably. It passed over Vader's head and hit the Grand Inquisitor in the chest, throwing him backwards, and then it hit the rest of the Inquisitors too. They thudded into the walls with bone-breaking impacts. Imperial officers had to duck out of the way and even then some of them were caught up in it. 

Luke lowered his arms, breathing hard. He felt full with the Force, brimming over. It was a wild, fierce energy, and it made him feel strong and powerful in a way he never remembered feeling before this. He stalked forwards, his attention fixed on the Grand Inquisitor, who was starting to get back to his feet. Nothing else existed to him. The man's lightsaber had been knocked out of his hand, but it came flying back to him the moment the Inquisitor called it. The red blade flicked out, and for a moment Luke saw again what he had seen in his vision. 

He wanted this man _dead_. 

The Force was only too happy to oblige. It wrapped itself around the Inquisitor's throat and then hesitated, seeming to wait for his command. _Yes_ , Luke thought, not caring how vicious his own thoughts sounded. His fist clenched and the Force tightened. The Grand Inquisitor tried to reach for the Force himself but it slipped away from him, dancing just out of his reach. Here it obeyed a different master. The man clawed at his neck – Luke felt the panic and desperation his mind had become, abandoned by the power that should have been his, vision darkening and dimming with every moment longer that blood and oxygen could not make it to his brain. 

Some part of him was aware that someone was calling his name, but it seemed to be happening very far away. It was of no consequence to him.

It seemed to take a long time for the Inquisitor to die. This was not a problem. In fact each slow moment seemed to give power to the Force, and thus, to Luke. Finally the man stopped struggling, and then jerked the final marionette dance of a death by strangulation. 

Luke allowed the limp body to collapse. His anger, bereft of its target, flashed loose and aimless and looking for something else to fix itself upon. There were other Inquisitors here, backed up against the walls at blaster-point by the clone veterans of the 501st. They were watching him with naked fear, and some with admiration. But they were no innocents. They had come here with the same goal in mind. The Force whispered to him, a part of every cell, every molecule. _Unleash yourself. Enact your will. Destroy them – feed me their pain and I will make you all the more powerful for it._

Wait. He... this wasn't what he wanted. 

This wasn't why he had come here. 

“Luke!” the voice finally broke through to him, deafening. Familiar. “Stop! Don't do this, _please_ , you're better than this! You aren't _him_.”

He turned around, his rage draining away to be replaced by dawning horror. Leia was looking at him with desperation from where she lay on the floor not very far away. How... how was she even _here_? He had seen her in his vision but he hadn't thought before about what that actually _meant_. She wasn't alone either; Han and Chewbacca were both near her, sitting with their backs to the wall, hands bound behind them – and there was another, a man in clone-styled trooper armour, though no pattern he recognised. Luke couldn't read the Wookie's expression or understand his low near-constant growl but Han's was... afraid. No, more, he was terrified. Luke had a brief flash of how he had appeared from outside – a monster in black, cloaked in the Dark Side, his eyes burning a sickly yellow. 

He shoved the Force away from him, Light and Dark both in his panic. The Dark Side went grudgingly, hissing and spitting, but it went. How had this happened? The very thing he had sworn he would never do... 

Because of what the Inquisitor had done to his father. 

Luke whirled round, looking for Vader. He had been so caught up in the Dark, in revenge, that even the very _reason_ for it had been put out of his head. His father was slumped on the ground, breathing in no more than the occasional hitched gasp. One of the clone troopers was kneeling next to him doing something to the control panel in his chest, and Artoo stood next to them uttering shrill shrieks of alarm. Luke strode the few steps that separated them and sunk down next to him. 

“Father...” he said, burning with fear and shame. “Please...”

“Luke... do not worry,” Vader replied, the damaged vocoder warping the words into something even more robotic. “I will... survive.”

“Not if you waste your breath talking sir!” the clone said sharply. He had taken off his helmet – perhaps just to see better. Lightning-bolt stripes were shaved into his grey hair. “We need to get you to the hyperbaric chamber here right away.”

Other clones appeared next to them at this, clearly having overheard. They bent and managed to get Vader on his feet with some difficulty. Luke rose too, hovering, unsure what he ought to be doing. Was there anything he could do to help? “Which way sir?” one of the clones asked Vader gently. 

Vader gestured. “Do... what must... be done,” he said to Luke. Then the clones bore him away, Artoo following.

Luke could barely think straight much less work out what _that_ might mean. He wanted to go with them, with his father, but... no, of course, none of them would be safe until they were out of this trap that the Emperor must have set for them. The other Inquisitors didn't seem about to challenge him, but what about whoever might have been in the other landing craft, what about the three Star Destroyers still hovering close by? His father was in no shape to be giving anybody any orders, which left only... him. 

This was not what he had wanted. But then everything from the moment he walked though the doors of the turbo-lift hadn't been what he wanted. 

“Commander Dogma,” he said. “Have the Inquisitors been disarmed?”

“Yes sir,” Dogma replied. “Shortstack has their weapons – although some seem to be missing since you sent the whole lot flying. And there's still the bridge crew to deal with. We have no idea which ones are loyal and which might have been in on this plot.”

This was another reason his father should be giving the orders, not Luke. He didn't have the first idea about that and he didn't know how he would go about finding out either. And... he had to face Leia and Han as well. He wasn't sure he could, after what they had seen him do, but he could hardly ignore them either. Besides, he needed to find out why they were here on _Executor_ , of all places.

The three Imperial Star Destroyers were holding their position at the moment; they were just visible from the bridge windows albeit at an awkward angle. He had some time. 

“Keep all the Imperials under guard for now,” Luke said. “I'm going to talk to my... to the Alliance soldiers.” He corrected himself just in time. As far as he was aware none of the clones knew that he had been a Rebel – he supposed after everything he couldn't really call himself one of them anymore. 

“Sir.” Dogma nodded, then added in a voice that was very carefully neutral. “One of them is a clone. I know – I knew him.”

He had to mean the man in GAR armour, the one Luke had never seen before. That only made him more curious – where had he come from? 

“Do you know his name?” he asked. 

“Rex,” Dogma replied. “He was a Captain in the 501st.”

A few of the Inquisitors looked as though they wanted to talk to Luke as he walked past them, but none actually did so. They were... intimidated by him. It made Luke feel even more sick. He stopped in front of Leia, who had managed to get into a sitting position and was looking at him with an expression he just couldn't read. He crouched next to her so that he could take a look at the cuffs and still see her face. 

This wasn't going to be an easy conversation.

\----

Piett had never expected to see something like this in his life. Just as he had thought, the black-clad sentients who had filled the bridge were no match for Lord Vader's prowess in combat, and for long moments he had calmed himself with the thought that this would soon be over and the Emperor's trap destroyed. Then the Inquisitors had stepped back, getting out of the way of the sudden burst of lightning that sprung from the hand of one of their number. Piett had felt the breath go out of him at the shock. How was that possible? Even the Jedi, for all the rumours, had never been claimed to be able to do something like _that_. 

Lord Vader hadn't been able to avoid it. That he relied on a life-support system within his suit was common knowledge, and with that much current flowing through it the inevitable had happened. The constant rasp of the respirator had simply... stopped. 

He hadn't died. Vader was still alive, even if he had been brought low. Piett had no idea how he was even still concious, although it seemed as though both those states of affairs would not continue much longer. The Inquisitor was poised to land the final blow. 

And then a squad of stormtroopers in Clone Wars era armour burst out of the lift, led by a young man in black, and... 

Piett's reflexes took over from his concious mind. The moment the Inquisitors were sent flying he hit the deck. Admiral Ozzel was not so lucky, and he wasn't the only one either. Only those crewmen in the two bridge pits escaped the wave of force. 

One of the Inquisitor's weapons came skidding across the polished durasteel floor and came to a stop right next to Piett. He eyed it cautiously. There were a number of buttons on the cylindrical hilt held inside the outer circle. He didn't know their precise functions, but he had seen how the Inquisitors used them. A thought occurred. Ozzel had hit his head when he'd landed, and although he was concious and groaning who knew if he would stay that way. But no point in leaving things to chance. 

Piett reached for the weapon and stood up slowly, staying half-crouched in case further Force powers were to be thrown about. He moved closer to Ozzel – no-one seemed to be paying him any attention, all focused on the young man. Holding the saber cautiously, Piett pressed several buttons in turn until a beam of red light shot from one end – and then he stabbed the blade down through the Admiral's heart. There. One problem had been dealt with. 

Except that the moment he looked up another presented itself. A trooper was pointing a blaster at him. Piett straightened up carefully, spreading his hands to show that he was unarmed, then had to try and keep his attention on the deadly weapon in the face of what was going on in the background. 

An Inquisitor appeared to be choking to death on nothing. At least, he was clawing at his throat, at an invisible force that had its grip on him and was even lifting him up onto the tips of his toes. The only person who seemed to be doing anything was the young man in black. He had his hand stretched out in front on him in a pose that – although Piett had never seen it in person – rumours had described to him all too well. Darth Vader was notorious for doing this to those who had displeased him. Who _was_ this boy?

One of the prisoners Lord Vader had been escorting onto the bridge was shouting. She called the young man Luke – not that that meant anything to Piett. 

“Sir.” The trooper was addressing him. Piett refocused his attention. “The lightsaber.”

Piett glanced at it. It was still burning, cooking Ozzel from the inside out. An awful smell was beginning to suffuse the air. “You're welcome to it,” he told the trooper honestly, stepping out of the way. The stranger took one hand off his carbine long enough to deactivate the saber and attach it to his belt where a few others already hung, then trained the weapon on Piett again. 

“I gotta wonder,” the trooper said, “how much a man has to hate his superior officer to take advantage of this kind of distraction and stab him when he's down.”

“Look,” Piett said, knowing that if the answer to his question was no he was liable to get himself killed. “Are you loyal to Lord Vader?”

“Yes,” the man snapped, sounding insulted. 

“So am I,” Piett said quickly, then pointed at Ozzel's corpse. “ _He_ was not. This situation is enough of a clusterkriff without him getting in the way.”

So you say, but... hm,” the trooper glanced away at the sound of a body hitting the floor. “Looks like Commander Skywalker has finished with that one. He can decide what to do with you.”

Luke Skywalker... no, the name wasn't familiar. “Who _is_ he?” Piett asked, watching the strange yellow tint drain out of the young man's eyes. He looked suddenly very tired and very unhappy. 

“That's classified information at present.”

Piett's first instinct was to protest – he was the kriffing _Captain_ of this ship and he had a right to know! But he wasn't that foolish. This was the kind of situation where playing it safe was the only wise course of action. He would wait and see how this all turned out. 

\----

Ever since she woke up from the stun-bolts Leia had been struggling to keep her anger in check. She had been aware of the possibility of capture on this mission, and all the more so if Vader was actually present. That didn't make it any easier to face. Truthfully after how their last meeting had ended, she hadn't known if she would survive a second encounter with Vader – or what other parts of herself she might lose. But he hadn't reacted at all how she had expected. He seemed distracted – but at least he had told Leia that Luke was still alive, although she didn't trust his idea of what 'safe' might mean. 

Vader had escorted them personally up to the bridge of _Executor_ , and things had only become stranger from there. Vader had mentioned plans of some kind, and now she wondered if he hadn't meant some kind of intention to move against the Emperor. It was the only thing that would make sense of the fact that he had been attacked by a force comprised of what could only be Inquisitors – Leia had never seen one in person before, but Ahsoka's description of them had left little to the imagination. Not to mention how they felt to her Force-senses. They were shadows, a darkness less powerful and terrible than Vader's, but one which seemed to cast a curtain over the Force. 

Each of them was armed with red-bladed lightsabers – but although they were clearly skilled, none were a match for Vader. At first it seemed that he would easily fend off their assault. At least until one of them revealed a Force-power that Leia had previously never even known existed. The lightning crackled over Vader's armour and Leia smiled. This was better than she had ever hoped for. Of course they were still prisoners and could expect no more mercy from these Imperials than from Vader himself, but with him dead the Empire would have lost its most powerful weapon. 

Vader sank to his knees, and the lead Inquisitor readied the final blow. Then something in the Force screamed. Leia couldn't help her full-body flinch of surprise. There was something achingly familiar in the Force very close by – she had been prevented from sensing it until now by the fog of the Dark Side. 

The doors of the turbo-lift slid open and a group of stormtroopers strode out with blasters at the ready, strange troopers with armour striped and patterned in blue – but she quickly forgot all about them at the sight of the person in their midst. It was Luke. 

“Luke!” She cried out, but he didn't answer, didn't even look her way. He was focused on Vader, and then the Force shuddered again, the Darkness raging all around them, and Luke's arms came up and _pushed._ The Inquisitors went flying. Leia watched Luke stride forwards with a stalk that was horribly reminiscent of Vader himself with a sinking heart. 

It was hard to watch what followed, but she forced herself to. It had been... it had been months, and for all that time Luke had been with Vader – and that monster would not have been idle. Leia had been sure that Luke would be able to hold out but... it was clear that she had been wrong. He had fallen, he had turned to the Dark Side. 

She called out to him as Luke slowly killed the Inquisitor, hoping that somehow her voice would get through to him, that somehow he would _stop_ , even though Ahsoka had told her that after a Jedi fell the person they had been ceased to exist. She didn't want to admit it, but Luke wasn't Luke anymore. 

Except that... once the Inquisitor was dead, Luke did stop. The raging power of the Dark that had surrounded him dissipated, and was replaced by... nothing. Just Luke – and he felt like he always had, like something she had never been fully concious of before Ahsoka's training. If she had had any doubts that they were brother and sister that feeling, that sense of him, would have dispelled them. 

Luke turned to look at her and she could feel his shame and distress in the Force as clear as a beacon. He turned away, unable to meet her gaze. Instead he moved towards Vader in several quick strides and sank down next to him and the man who appeared to be giving him some kind of first aid. Luke's projected flurry of emotions now read as concern, as _love,_ impossible as that seemed. How could anyone love someone like Vader? What possible reason could he have given Luke to feel this way about him? They should just be leaving him to die – that would solve so many of their problems. But instead several of the stormtroopers heaved Vader up and took him away off the bridge after a few words to Luke too quiet for her to hear. Leia glared at them as they passed, but they weren't paying any attention to her. 

Now Luke began speaking to the stormtroopers he had brought with him – giving orders. Who were these soldiers? Had Vader just... given him a squad? If so, why? For protection or to stop him escaping – although if it was the latter it wouldn't make sense that they were obeying him. Also, the one who had been helping Vader – the one who had removed his helmet – had looked very, _very_ familiar. In fact, she realised, he looked like Rex, like Wolffe and Gregor – they could have been brothers. No, more than that. That man had been a clone. 

That only raised more questions than it answered – and by this point Leia was getting very tired of questions. She had spoken to Rex enough to know that to his knowledge there _were_ no more clones left in the Imperial army. They had been killed or they had aged out – some Rex had tried to reach out to in the past, but after decades of service none seemed interested in anything the Alliance stood for. 

Luke finished speaking to the trooper with blue arrows painted over his helmet and chest and headed over in her direction. He crouched down next to her, still not entirely meeting her gaze. “Leia, I'm... I'm sorry,” he said quietly. 

He _sounded_ like himself. And she wanted so very badly to believe that this was him, that this was Luke her brother, but after what she had seen him do and more importantly what she had felt from him in the Force, some part of her couldn't help but wonder if this was just some awful trick. 

“Just tell me,” she said, indicating the stormtroopers with a motion of her head, “Are you with _them_ now?”

“I.. no. Not exactly.” She reached out with the Force, but she couldn't detect any duplicity from him. Was it possible then? For him to have used the Dark Side and come back from it? What had happened, in all these months? 

“Not exactly _isn't_ no,” Leia snapped. “Luke so help me, you'd better explain what's going on!”

Duplicity no, but Luke still seemed avoident. Although perhaps that was simply to be expected – he clearly regretted what he had done, which was only more evidence that this was really _him._ He cleared his throat and said, “Vader... I'm sure Han told you. He's my father.”

Tell her something she _didn't_ know. “That doesn't mean he has any kind of claim over you,” Leia said. “Did he tell you about me?”

Luke's eyes widened. “Yes, of course – but I didn't think you knew that he's your father too!” That question had surprised him, that or the fact that she already knew the truth. His answer surprised her too. Whether Vader had known before or had only found out recently, she still wouldn't have expected him to share that information, even with Luke.

“I know – and I also know that it doesn't change anything,” she told him. “My _real_ father was Bail Organa. I have _no_ obligation to Vader, and Luke, neither do you! What he's been teaching you... about the Dark Side...”

“No!” Luke said quickly. “He hasn't been teaching me – that was my fault, I was too angry, I slipped! I should have known better. I should never have done that – and I would never have been able to let go of the Dark if you weren't here. Leia, you saved me!”

There was honesty in every word – and the Force told her the same. Leia allowed herself to relax. Whatever political allegiance Luke might have fallen into, at least he wasn't a Sith. If he had been in the company of Imperials and Vader long enough for them to brainwash him to their ideals then that could still be fixed, if only they could get him away from them. The Dark Side was more tricky – but it seemed that wasn't the issue she had been worried it was. “I _know_ you,” Leia told him. “You're my brother, and you're a good person. I knew you would hold out until we could get you back.”

“We're not out of the wastes yet,” Luke said. “You're right, I need to explain everything that's happened with Vader, but it would take a lot longer than I think we have. And... I feel responsible, for the lives of everyone on board this ship.”

“Why? They're the enemy – they're soldiers. None of them are innocent.”

“There has to be a better way.” Luke looked pained. “My father – he plans for us to kill the Emperor.”

She had begun to suspect something like it – this only confirmed her suspicions. “Not I'm sure out of the goodness of his heart,” she said. “You think Vader would be any better an Emperor? You think he cares about anything except power – that he would do anything other than rule through fear the same as his _master?”_

Luke flinched. “I know,” he said. “I don't agree with what he plans afterwards but if there really is a chance to kill Sidious then shouldn't I take it? Isn't that a faster way to get rid of the Empire than... than things like this?”

“You're making a bargain with something you can neither trust or control,” Leia warned him. “Luke, you're _smarter_ than this! Don't turn to the Dark Side – help us get free, destroy _Executor,_ and come back to the Alliance with us.”

“Is that why you're here?” Luke asked. “There was a mission to blow up the ship? What about everyone on board?”

“You mean the _Imperial soldiers?”_ Leia replied. “Stop it – this isn't you!”

Luke gave her a weak smile. “Do you really think the Alliance would have me back?” he asked her. “If they know who I'm related to?”

“If Vader was dead...” Leia began. 

“No!” Luke said sharply. “He's not going to die, and I'm not going to let anyone else hurt him either. I know he's done terrible things. I know there are good reasons to hate him but I can't! There's still some good left in him and if I can persuade him, if I can bring him around to our way of thinking...”

“Luke you can't be serious!” Leia could hardly believe what she was hearing. Did he mean to try and bring Vader back to the Light, to the Jedi? Or to the Alliance? Either would be simply impossible. This was a fool's errand, to put it kindly. 

“I am. I know I can do it.” He sounded... certain. Grounded in a way he hadn't since appearing on the bridge. “And that means I have to go along with his plans for now; and that includes _Executor_ and everyone on her. I have to save them from this trap the Emperor has set – which means I'm going to have to act like an Imp.”

“Is it really acting?” she asked him coldly. This wasn't the same Luke who had been taken prisoner on Vrogas Vas – and she had been silly to ever expect that he would be. He was still her brother though. She still cared for him – but caring for him also meant trying to talk him out of stupid decisions. 

“Maybe I'm starting to doubt that myself,” Luke told her in little more than a whisper. “But that doesn't mean I won't do the things that need to be done.” He stood up and gestured to the stormtrooper he'd been talking to earlier. “Find someone to get these cuffs off,” he ordered. 

The trooper looked at the various Imperial officers who were clustered on the far side of the bridge. “Who's in charge here?” 

One of the men stepped forwards. He was a short, thin-faced man, but he held himself with remarkable poise and confidence for someone in his position – and it was a good mask, considering that Leia could sense just how anxious he really was underneath it. “That would be me,” he said. “I am Captain Piett, previously of the ISD- _Accuser._ And you are?”

“Commander Dogma, 501st,” the stormtrooper replied, pointedly failing to salute a superior officer, Leia noticed. The 501st were Darth Vader's personal legion, although they had spent most of their recent time seconded to Grand-General Tagge's forces. “Release the prisoners, Captain – and if you're questioning my authority or that of Commander Skywalker, be advised that we answer only to Lord Vader.”

“From this point on, I think that is now true of all of us,” Captain Piett remarked, handing one of his code cylinders to a lieutenant pale with fear, who saluted and approached Leia and the others with caution. The binders around Leia's wrists snapped open and she stood, rubbing at the skin where the metal had bitten in. In short order Han, Chewie and Rex had jointed her. 

“Now what Princess?” Han whispered to her. 

The bridge was crowded with Imperials, and the four of them were unarmed – even though to a Wookie like Chewbacca that didn't mean much. Leia scowled. “Now we wait for an opportunity,” she said.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are further family reunions - of a sort, the Inquisitors try to explain themselves, and the battle is not over yet.

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , docked above Fondor, Tapani Sector**

They had lost contact with Commander Organa’s strike group, and Hera was worried. At first she had thought it might just be the size of the ship itself that was preventing their transmission from going through, but Chopper had plugged into a data port and tried piggybacking their signal on _Executor’s_ internal comms to no better response. She didn’t want to admit it, but something had almost certainly gone wrong. 

It didn’t matter. Her team all knew what they had to do. Even if one group had been captured or killed or simply held up somewhere, they could still destroy this vessel. When they overloaded the reactor it would tear _Executor_ free from the orbital docks that surrounded it and with neither that support or engine power it wouldn’t be able to maintain orbit. The whole monstrous mass of it would come plunging down through atmosphere. A lot of people would probably die - and maybe some of them might even be innocent. A long time ago she would have been horrified at the thought. When she’d still had Kanan - he had made her a better woman, given her hope, something to live for. Something that said she wasn’t like her father, blinkered by his hate for the Empire into that narrow gaze that said Ryloth, only Ryloth, and let the rest of the galaxy burn. 

When Kanan had been killed - been _murdered_ \- at the hands of Ezra, at the monster he had become… something inside her had died. It had been dying ever since she had made the decision to leave Ezra behind on Lothal. She could no longer see what had been clear at the time - that it was the only choice that would save the rest of them. Had it really been worth it? The thoughts had tormented her ever since - the smallest possibility that there might have been another way, that if she had only waited just a little bit longer Ezra would have made it to them… 

By leaving, in a way hadn’t she doomed the man she loved? Kanan might still be alive if only… 

None of that was relevant. She tried to focus again on their mission.

They had encountered more resistance on their journey through _Executor_ than Hera had been expecting, given that the ship was only supposed to have a skeleton crew at present. With each squad of bucketheads they ran into she had lost more of the Alliance soldiers that had been placed under her command, even though they managed to take far more of the enemy with them. Still, at this point they were nearly at the main engine control room – they wouldn't have to worry about it much longer. 

“How you feeling Chopper?” she asked the droid. “Ready to hack this hulk?”

Chopper whistled back, extending his manipulator arms to flex them as though he were showing off his muscles. Hera smiled. She had lost so much, but at least she still had Chopper, and Sabine, and Zeb. 

Zeb had been taking point, bo-rifle at the ready, but suddenly he stopped with his ears twitching. “Do you hear that?” he asked them. 

Hera listened hard, then shook her head. “Nothing.” 

“I don’t either,” Sabine admitted, and the others all shook their heads as well. 

Zeb growled. “Footsteps. Running towards us. More than one set and… at least some of them aren’t human.”

Hera frowned. “What do you mean not human?”

“Some kind of animal - quadruped,” Zeb replied. He was half-crouched, looking as though he was about to pounce. Then Hera could hear it too. She trained her blaster on the intersection ahead of them, following Zeb’s lead. Sabine hefted a thermal detonator. She had a small supply with her which they had planned to use to destroy the computers in the control room to prevent anyone undoing what they had done, but one or two less would make no difference. 

Two _somethings_ rounded the corner. They weren’t like anything Hera had ever seen before, but they were clearly predators. Lizards at least three meters long, scaled and spined, they ran with a loping feline gait. Hera didn’t hesitate; she opened fire. But the things seemed to have almost impossible reflexes and were smart enough to use their surroundings to their advantage, bouncing off the walls to avoid shots, ducking and weaving. They were coming too quickly for Sabine to have risked the detonator, Hera could tell. They were so close now… 

One of the creatures leapt and fastened its jaws around Zeb’s bo-rifle. It twisted violently, trying to wrench it out of his hands, claws scraping at his belly and legs. Zeb was knocked to the ground by their tussle, swearing and kicking back at the thing’s own abdomen to little apparent effect. And then the second one was there, coming for Hera. She fired a shot at it point-blank, aiming for the head but only glancing the shoulder as it twisted away, and even then it hardly left a mark. Something in the things’ hide… 

Jaws sharp with dozens of teeth snapped at her. The tip of its maw just managed to close around the end of her pistol and unlike Zeb there was no way she was strong enough to hold onto it. The blaster went flying, hitting one of the walls and skittering away over the floor who knew where. Several more blaster shots hit the monster in the side - Sabine was circling it cautiously along with several commandos - but it merely hesitated for a moment and then shook itself and turned its attention to them. 

Hera had no other weapons. She hadn’t expected to need them. 

Chopper darted past her with his shock-probe and saw extended, warbling angrily, but the animal turned sharply and batted the droid aside with a clawed paw, sending him spinning. 

“ _Slana’pir!_ ” Sabine yelled at the beast, keeping up a steady stream of red-tinted fire from her twin pistols. Even with her uncanny accuracy and the supporting fire only a bare half of them were hitting. The creature roared at her, making lunges towards her, but each time brought up short by the sustained shots. 

Then. A sound that Hera would have known anywhere. The snap-hiss of a lightsaber activating. Almost immediately afterwards the rich smell of cooking meat filled the air as a red blade carved through flesh. She heard Sabine swear and dodge out of the way. Hera turned, some part of her already knowing what she would see. A part of her that had hoped and dreaded this since Leia had mentioned him on Umbra. 

Ezra swept through the Alliance soldiers, impossibly deadly. He deflected blaster shots with ease, and thus distracted there was no-one to keep the predatory creature back either. It too leapt to the attack, jaws tearing through cloth and fastening around limbs in spouts of blood. It was all over in moments. And then Ezra... stopped. 

He was a little older, but otherwise he looked almost the same. All that had changed was how he was dressed; in an Inquisitor’s blacks, and holding that horrible red blade. He was looking at her with… sorrow? Determination? She couldn’t trust anything about him. She couldn’t let his appearance deceive her. This man wasn’t Ezra, not really. The murder and destruction he had just committed proved that.

The creatures were no longer attacking. They slunk around to join Ezra - one holding Zeb’s rifle in its teeth - and stopped there, unmoving, quiet and still. Hera was reminded of one of Kanan’s lessons she had watched; trying to teach Ezra to calm a wild loth-cat. These beasts weren’t just well trained; they were being _controlled_. 

“I can’t let you do what you’re planning,” Ezra said. “I’m not going to kill anyone else, but you can’t go any further.”

Zeb snarled, and said what Hera couldn’t force out of her suddenly tight throat. “You’re a murderer, kid! You expect us to believe you?”

“I've done what I needed to do,” Ezra replied, but he sounded… uncertain. This wasn’t the boastful bloodthirsty Inquisitor who had cornered her and Kanan on Boz Pity. “I didn’t have a choice – _you_ attacked _us_. You came here.”

“There’s _always_ a choice,” Sabine replied, gesturing with a pistol. Hera didn’t miss the fact that she was the only one of them who was still armed - not counting Chopper, whose weapons were part of his astromech repair tools. 

“And we don't mean just now,” Hera added, burning with anger. “Or have you already forgotten what you did to Kanan!”

“ _No_!” Ezra insisted. “Kanan had to die so that the rest of you could survive!”

“How _dare_ you!” Hera found herself saying, rage making her words sharp. “How dare you try and justify what you did!”

“Someone _had_ to die,” the Inquisitor yelled back. “The Empire were coming for you either way! You'd done too much - we were _terrorists_! A threat to peace and order! And worse, Kanan was a Jedi!”

“Yes, he was,” Hera said, her hands itching for something, _anything_ , she could have used as a weapon. “He was a guardian of justice, just like they were. He fought for _real_ peace, not the lie the Empire sells as it.”

“You don't _know_ ,” Ezra insisted. “You don't _know_ what they were _really_ like.”

Zeb snarled. “I'm sick of listening to excuses,” he said. “Kanan's dead. You killed him. The reasons don't matter and they don't change anything. Peace? Order? You think that's what the Empire did to _my people_? No. You're the enemy now, so either fight us or get out of our way.”

“I'm not going to kill you,” the Inquisitor said. “And I don't _want_ to hurt you, but that doesn't mean I'm not willing to do it if I really have to. I'm taking you prisoner – _please_ , don't resist. Don't make me...” he trailed off. He was pretending he actually _cared_ about them, about their well-being, and he had no right to do that after everything he had done. Hera's anger felt like acid in her throat. 

But... he was armed. He had those two creatures. And although he claimed he would rather not fight, Hera believed him when he said he would do whatever he thought necessary. She had seen the aftermath of what a lightsaber used non-lethally could do far too many times by now. Kanan, Ahsoka... He wouldn't _have_ to kill them when he could just mutilate them instead. She was in charge of Spectre, and she wouldn't try futilely to complete their mission at the expense of her family.

“Fine,” she said. “We surrender. Now what's your plan?”

The Inquisitor hesitated. “Just... follow me.”

\----

Rex had felt numb ever since the squadron of troopers had burst onto the bridge, because the simple fact of it was that he recognised them. In the years since Order 66 he had kept tabs on each surviving member of the 501st, a number which had dwindled with each Imperial campaign – and there hadn't been that many left to begin with. Not given how many of his brothers had eaten their blasters after what they had been forced to do. Those who hadn't... he had often wondered how they could go on working for the same Emperor who had turned them into nothing more than meat clankers. Sometimes he thought they weren't really his brothers at all, not where it counted. But that didn't mean he didn't feel... responsible for them. He might have given up his command but all of these men had once been his to keep alive, and that _meant_ something.

So he had kept a look out for what happened to them – and he had noticed that some clones when they retired just simply disappeared. Rex had suspected foul play from the Empire, but now...? These men were alive, and they were here, on _Executor_ – with the General's son. 

A son who clearly had just as much Force potential as the rest of his damn family, given what he had done to the Inquisitors and their leader in particular. Rex tried to pretend he wasn't listening to the conversation between Luke and Leia in the aftermath of all that – it was clearly the kind of conversation that was _meant_ to be private – but it was hard not to when they were less than a meter away. Instead he focused on the clones, matching names to patterns. He had never thought he would see any of these brothers again – particularly... was that Dogma? After Krell, Dogma had been taken back to Kamino for reconditioning and the long-necks still hadn't returned him by the end of the war. How had _he_ gotten here? 

The Skywalker twins had finished their little chat – not that Rex had liked Luke's answers much more than Leia had - but thankfully the four of them were to be released. A shiny Lieutenant came over to him with a code cylinder, and removed the cuffs. Rex stood, falling into parade rest. He had noticed Dogma was watching him – he could feel the weight of his gaze even through his helmet. He had a depressing feeling that Dogma would be just as mindlessly loyal to the wrong people now as he had been to Krell during the war. 

“Captain Piett.” That was Luke, addressing the Imp officer in charge. “These Inquisitors... is there somewhere we can put them?”

Rex had wondered about that – once their commander was dead the rest of the black-clad _osi'yaim_ had stood down, not making the slightest bit of effort to attack. It ran counter to everything he knew of them – and the only apparent reason for it was Luke. Although if they hadn't backed down when facing Vader, why do so when facing his son?

“Of course _Executor_ has a brig...” the Captain began, and then one of the Inquisitors interrupted him. She was a Zabrak, skin patterned in yellow and black. 

“My lord,” she said quickly, addressing Luke. “There's no need to imprison us – we're not enemies.”

“You'd better explain that,” Luke said. He was clearly doing his best to sound certain and in control, but Rex had known enough shiny officers to see that he was far from comfortable with any of this. “Because you were definitely our enemies when you came here.”

“I speak for myself – the Fourth Sister – and not for any of the others,” the Zabrak said, “but I came here on the orders of our Master to kill Darth Vader only, and no mention was made of any other Sith. I suppose that makes sense though; if Lord Vader was training an apprentice Lord Sidious would want to make the first strike. But... Sidious is far away, and you are here, and I don't particularly want to die.” 

So the Inquisitors had made the same assumptions Leia had about what Vader had been doing with his son these last months. Luke had claimed otherwise – although quietly enough not to be overheard by the Inquisitors – and Rex still wasn't sure how he felt about that himself. He had never cared to know too much about the mysteries of the Force, but the boy didn't seem the type for that particular brand of evil... although neither had General Skywalker, and look how he had ended up. 

The Zabrak's words elicited laughter and scoffing equally from the other Inquisitors. Another – masked, so species was hard to tell – said, “It was a test of strength. If Vader lost, he didn't deserve to be the Apprentice and maybe one of us might have been granted it instead – although given we were told to bring back the Jedi alive I do wonder about that. But now it's just the natural way of the Sith; Master against Apprentice. It wouldn't be right to get involved in that.”

“What Jedi?” Luke asked – a question Rex wanted the answer to as well. Had the Emperor expected Ahsoka to come with them, or...

“Organa,” the Inquisitor said, gesturing at Leia. Rex stiffened. No...

Luke had paled, but otherwise he didn't seem to react outwardly to that bit of news. “I... appreciate your points of view,” he said, “and your honesty, but obviously I'm not just going to trust you.” 

“Obviously,” said a third Inquisitor, with a smirk. 

“So for now you'll go to the brig, and you _won't_ try to escape, okay?”

There was some muttering, but the general tone was of agreement. Captain Piett, who had been watching all of this closely, signalled another of the bridge officers to escort the Inquisitors away. Rex was glad to see the back of them. Just their presence was putting him on edge. 

When they were finally all gone, Captain Piett turned back to Luke. “It's not that I don't appreciate the rescue,” he said cautiously, “but if you don't mind, who _are_ you Commander Skywalker, and what are you doing on my ship?”

“It's Lord Vader's ship,” Commander Dogma told the man sharply. “Also, last I checked our intel indicated there was also meant to be an Admiral on board.”

“The Emperor's man, yes,” the Captain said, not missing a beat. “He's no longer an issue.”

“He means he killed him,” someone said helpfully. That was _Tens_ – Rex had thought he was dead! After he'd lost his legs fighting the Alliance he had simply disappeared from the records. It had been natural to assume the Empire had dealt with him as the long-necks had in these situations – defective equipment. Scrap it. And yet here he was – and with a decent pair of cybernetics as well, to judge from the way he moved. 

“Thank you Shortstack,” Dogma said. So Tens had changed his name as well – well, that was his business. “Speaking of that issue, Diver, Gamma, if you could see to it that these bodies are cleared up...”

“Yes, I killed Admiral Ozzel,” Piett said – he wasn't foolish enough to try and deny it. “And as I told your trooper, you should be thankful that I did. Now can we spend a little less time on that and a little more on dealing with the three Star Destroyers off our bow.” 

“That's what I want too,” Luke said. “And under normal circumstances I wouldn't dream of giving orders to someone who clearly knows how to do their job but... I've only got your word that you aren't working for the Emperor as well.”

Rex was focused enough on the bridge at large to notice that by this point in the conversation, a lot of junior Imp officers were looking very nervous, and some not a little ill. None seemed to have the guts to speak up right now though, and given everything that had been happening he supposed he couldn't blame them. He was sure none of them had been in on this apparent split between Vader and the Emperor or anything else in this whole kriffing confusing situation. He wasn't sure himself he had it all straight in his head.

Piett bristled. “I was picked for this Captaincy by Lord Vader himself,” he snapped. “I've given my word to commit treason by siding with him. Whereas _you_... you seem surprisingly reticent to tell anyone anything about who you are.”

Luke sighed. “This is... Okay. Not the way Vader probably imagined anyone finding out but... I'm his son.” 

Next to Rex, Leia rolled her eyes. “ _Really_ Luke,” she said under her breath. “Just _tell_ them?”

Piett went very quiet and very pale. Finally he said, “No-one would make up something as unbelievable as that... or dare claim it knowing what Lord Vader would be bound to do once he recovers from his injuries.”

“Pretty much,” Luke said, looking uncomfortable. “Now can we work together to get out of this mess?”

“Of course sir,” Piett said. A moment's pause. “Do you have a plan?”

“My plan was to save my father,” Luke said. “More than that... I hadn't really figured out yet. But... what's the status of _Executor_? Can we fight our way out?”

“None of the weapons systems have been calibrated yet,” Piett said. “Shields are operational, as are sublight engines. The hyperdrive is... theoretically usable but we had planned to do some very thorough testing of all of its systems before activating it for the first time. Besides, we're still heavily locked in to the shipyard machinery – tearing free of that would be an issue.”

So... unable to fight and unable to flee either. Rex wondered how long it would take those three Star Destroyers to batter down their shields. If they waited long enough, the Empire would do the Alliance's own damn job for it. That would be some kind of victory, if a poor one, but... What if this ship could win the day? What if Vader waged civil war, split the Empire? That kind of chaos and division would only be good for the Alliance – it would weaken their enemies' strength, set the Alliance up as a bastion of protection for those caught up in the fighting... As abhorrent a thought as it was to consider helping any Imp, it might make genuine tactical sense to do so. 

“Once they realise the Inquisitors have failed, how long do we have before they could get through our shields and we start taking damage?” Luke was asking Piett, echoing Rex's own thoughts. 

The Captain sighed. “I can quote you the numbers from the technical specifications but realistically it will be less than those estimates. We're still a week or so shy of completion. I'm afraid the situation isn't good.”

There was a gleam in Luke's eyes that Rex found horribly familiar. It was the gleam of a Skywalker plan starting to form, and Skywalker plans were always without doubt terrifying for everyone involved in them. With a sinking heart, he watched the words come out of the kid's mouth.

“I think I might have an idea.”

\----

He couldn't do this without the Force. Luke hadn't realised how much he'd come to rely on it until he had pushed it all so firmly away from him. It had started to be almost another sense, one which told him so much about the people around him, and now he found himself second-guessing and doubting. He couldn't let his own fear of what he had done rule him – although he felt sick to his stomach whenever he thought about it for more than a moment – and particularly not at a time like this when the very survival of every person on board _Executor_ could be depending on him. 

Cautiously he opened himself back up to the Force. The bridge was still thick with the Dark Side, winding its way around the officers, the clones, clustered thickly where the Inquisitors had been. It spun in slow, drifting circles around the sphere of light that was Leia, occasionally sending out little testing feelers towards her anger at the situation she found herself in. She hadn't been like this before on Vrogas Vas – he knew that much even if his abilities with the Force hadn't been that strong back then either. Someone had been teaching her... that was just another thing to ask her after this was over and they had a chance to talk properly, in depth.

Luke drew strength from his sister's presence. _She_ knew better than to lose herself to her emotions, and she hadn't even had the benefit of Alkamar to tell her that they could be used to draw on the Light Side of the Force rather than the Dark. Which was what he _should_ have done – he had no excuse otherwise. He' d been _warned_ what had been done to Bogan of old, how it had been corrupted, how it was _dangerous..._

No, this wasn't the time to be thinking about this. He had to focus. He could sense the worry and uncertainty coming from _Executor's_ officers. They might have believed him when he told them who his father was and be willing to listen to what he had to say, but they wouldn't trust him until he had proved himself. 

Speaking of his father... He reached out towards Vader along their bond, unable to stop himself. The shadow of the Inquisitors was gone now, and he felt his father's mind, a brief flash of pain and the image of a white room before Vader gently pushed him away. 

_You cannot afford to focus on me right now my son_ , he said, voice echoing in Luke's mind. _Concentrate._

Luke withdrew. His father was right – and what had all those military lessons been for if not to prepare him for things like this? Admittedly they hadn't included anything about _Executor_ , but he hoped that at least some of what he had been taught about capital ships would apply. 

“The calibration just links the weapons turrets in with the ship's targeting computers, right?” he said, addressing Captain Piett. “They can still theoretically be fired from here?”

“Even at these distances manual targeting would be hopelessly inaccurate,” Piett replied. Luke could sense the man's estimation of him drop several notches, so he hurried to clarify. 

“Against the Star Destroyers yes, but I was thinking of something a bit closer – and not able to move. Specifically, whatever is keeping us in place here.” 

Piett flinched. “You want us... to fire on parts of our own ship,” he said, the very concept clearly painful. Luke could sympathise – and if Dogma had been right about Vader ordering _Executor_ to be build in the first place no doubt he wouldn't be happy about it either, but growing up on Tatooine had taught Luke some tough lessons about practicality. 

“Unfortunately, yes,” Luke replied. “And while the hyperdrive might be a little more complicated, at least in the meantime doing this will give us some kind of manoeuvrability.”

Piett didn't like it, but he understood Luke's logic. He nodded. “Very well. Lieutenant Jutai, begin manual targeting of the docking clamps.”

“Sir,” the officer acknowledged, and began working feverishly at his console. 

“Even using the minimum number of turbolasers for each clamp, there are enough targets that this will take some time,” Piett told him. 

“But we still have plenty of turrets spare?” Luke asked, then continued, his mind working furiously. “We might be able to do something else whilst we wait for those calculations. If we can lure those Star Destroyers in a little bit closer I think you might be surprised at how big a help the Force can be. It was manual targeting that brought down the Death Star, after all.”

Piett's eyes narrowed – his disbelief was clear in the Force. “How do you come to have that information, Commander Skywalker?” 

Luke tried not to react. He really shouldn't have let those words come out of his mouth, but too late to take them back now. “That's not... exactly relevant,” he said quickly. “What's important is making those vessels believe their attack has been successful – which means we need an Inquisitor who can actually be trusted. Luckily I brought one with me.”

More disbelief from Piett, but Luke could feel the shock of recognition from Leia, and from the Alliance clone Rex. That meant the two of them must have met Ezra's old crew. Ezra _would_ be pleased – Luke was sure it would make him happy to know that they were alive and well somewhere – or, given their appearance in his vision, they might have been the people whom he was called to go off and find which was less good but... no time to worry about that now. 

“Can you raise him on the comms Dogma?” Luke asked the clone. 

“Sir.” Dogma activated his wrist-mounted comm device. It would send a ping to the one that Ezra had and prompt him to answer if he was able to. Luke still didn't know exactly what he had been doing all this time, although he had two hssiss with him and was no mean fighter himself. He couldn't imagine Ezra getting into too much trouble to get himself out of. 

“Commander Dogma!” Ezra's image appeared as a small holo hovering over Dogma's wrist. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you. Is Luke there?”

“I'm here,” Luke said, crowding close enough that his voice at least would be picked up by the device, even if the rest of him wasn't. “Where are you?”

“Back at the hanger where we docked,” Ezra replied. “I have some... company. Which is why I wanted to talk to you, because I have _no idea_ what to do with them!”

“What kind of company?” Luke asked. “Are they the reason why you had to run off?”

Ezra nodded. He looked miserable, as much as could be told from the small holoimage. “It's Spectre,” he said. “My... crew. They were part of an Alliance assault force – I caught them heading for main engine control. I've taken them prisoner but... I don't know what to do with them now.”

“Bring them here, to the bridge,” Luke told him, before anyone else in the room could say something 'helpful' such as to give directions to the brig. There wasn't time for that – he needed Ezra here _now_ for his plan to work, and it was already a long shot. “We already have some Alliance prisoners up here to keep them company, and we're going to need you to play regular Inquisitor again.” 

“Did you find out what's going on?” Ezra asked. “And Lord Vader...”

“Just... get up here,” Luke said, trying not to flinch. He wasn't about to tell Ezra how badly he'd failed over a comm channel.

Ezra nodded, and cut the connection. Luke eyed the still-silent Star Destroyers nervously. The Inquisitor had better hurry.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ezra succeeds on his bluff roll, Luke and Leia work together to manage something impressive, and Rex finally gets a chance to talk to his brothers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is up early because of shift timing this week. 
> 
> TW for a person being dismissive/disrespectful about those who have committed suicide.

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , docked above Fondor, Tapani Sector**

The ride up to the bridge was an uncomfortable one. If she had run into these lizard-creatures in the wild Sabine would have admired them, the sleek lines and grace of natural predators – she might even have wanted to base a work of art on them. Packed into a very small space with the two, and having seen just what they were capable of in a fight, she was a lot less happy. At least Ezra seemed to have them well under control – and _ancestor's spirits_ it was weird seeing him again. On Boz Pity... she had only seen the aftermath of what he'd done. It had been enough to convince her once and for all that the old Ezra was really dead, that only the Inquisitor remained. 

Now... now doubt had crept back in. Even though he had killed all the other rebels, he hadn't killed _them_. He sounded like Ezra. He acted... not like Ezra but like a strange mirror-version of him. When he had spoken to that other young man over his comms he had seemed friendly with him in a way that just didn't make sense given her experience with those other Inquisitors in the past. Camaraderie had been a foreign concept for the Fifth Brother and the Seventh Sister; they'd been typical backstabbing Imps just like the ones at the Academy on Mandalore – the kind of behaviour which had only been one of the many reasons she had left that place. 

Not that any of this would be enough to make Hera or Zeb change their minds about him. Sabine had known them long enough to tell that. And it wasn't enough for her either – not really. He had killed Kanan, killed those Alliance commandos... She wasn't about to forget that they were on different sides here and that Ezra had thrown his lot in with the Empire and everything it stood for. Order, or in other words conformity and oppression. No, he was a traitor to their cause. 

That didn't mean she couldn't have regrets. 

The turbo-lift slid to a halt silently, and the doors opened in a swift smooth motion that was almost noiseless. Ezra and his pets ushered them out into a long wide corridor that opened out into the ship's bridge on their right. There were a _lot_ of Imps hanging around here; not surprising. Uniformed officers, a dozen bucketheads... although unusual bucketheads. The Empire didn't go in for expressing individuality, which was why Sabine took such joy in improving their stuff with her art, but these guys... It looked like they had had the same idea. Each and every one had painted their armour differently. The patterns were unique – there might be common themes and a very limited palette, but no two were the same. 

Rex did that. Sabine had asked him about it hoping to find the soul of a fellow artist, but his reasoning had been more prosaic. It was a clone thing, apparently. But that didn't explain this lot. 

Someone nearby sighed – an unhappy sound. Sabine turned to look, and swore inside her head. She had been hoping the other Alliance prisoners this 'Luke' had mentioned over the comms had just been a few stragglers separated from Commander Organa's main force but... no. Leia Organa was here on the bridge, along with Captain Solo, Chewbacca, and Captain Rex. Like the Spectre crew, they were restrained by the threat of violence rather than physically – too many blasters around here to try anything. 

The two lizards snarled. Something had set them off – they were crouched as though ready to pounce, their scales flared outwards in a show of clear aggression. Sabine backed away from the one closest to her very slowly, but it didn't seem to be focused on her at all. In fact, both the predators were looking at Leia Organa. 

“Oh kark,” Ezra said quietly. “What the kriff is a Jedi doing here?”

The young man in the centre of the bridge – who had been down on one knee next to one of the command pits to see what someone was doing on their console – leapt to his feet, his face going pale. “Ezra don't let them! Call them off like you did for me!”

Ezra stretched his arms out as though to hold the creatures back. “I could only do that because of your father!” he called back, face set in deep concentration. 

“That's _Leia,_ ” the man replied, with strange emphasis. Ezra's expression changed as he realised... something. Sabine had no idea what was going on here, but gradually the two creatures began to calm down, snapping in Commander Organa's direction irritably, but no longer making any motions to attack. 

What the hell had _that_ been about.

“So, this is that Inquisitor friend you told me about on the _Falcon?_ ” Captain Solo asked, addressing the strange Imp. Although, thinking about it, hadn't this been who Ezra had been talking to over his comms – Luke, he'd called him. Luke... Finally it clicked in her head, and she felt foolish for not realising it earlier. Luke Skywalker. Vader's son. Leia's brother. Which had something to do with the lizards – but that was Force stuff.

Great. Leia's brother was nothing but another traitor, she thought with venom. Imps everywhere. 

“Yes, this is Ezra,” Luke said. He wandered over to them, smiling broadly. A sour-faced Imp wearing Captain's insignia trailed after him. 

“We've heard all about him,” Commander Organa said coldly, looking Ezra up and down. “Although not about his _pets_.” Sabine watched him try not to flinch under the attention and only partially succeed. 

“It's nice to meet your friends in the flesh this time,” the young man said to Ezra. Sabine frowned. What did he mean by that? 

“I can't say the same,” Hera said. Her lekku were twitching in a way that meant serious anger.

“See _you_ didn't inherit the height either,” Zeb said, with a nasty grin. Sabine remained silent, glad for her helmet.

“I just wish this could be under better circumstances,” Ezra told his friend,. “Luke... what's going on? I can feel from the Dark Side that something important happened here. Is Lord Vader...?”

“He's still alive,” Luke said, in what was clearly meant to be reassurance. “Just... injured.” Sabine grit her teeth. She remembered that monster from Lothal. He had been the one to capture Ezra, to take him from them – and now Ezra was _worried_ about him? Not to mention that after the initial panic of facing Vader had faded she had _remembered_ all the kriffing holos the Academy had tried to shove down her throat and the figure who starred in them. Although those hadn't shown things from the point of view of the people he was trying to _crush_.

“He's a Sith Lord; whatever's happened I'm sure he'll be okay,” Ezra said, in a comforting tone of voice. 

“And the rest...” Luke shook his head. “I'll tell you later. Right now I need your help again – whoever is in charge of those Star Destroyers needs to think that their mission has been a success. That my father is dead and Leia has been captured.”

Wait. What Star Destroyers? Sabine looked out of the transparisteel viewports and cursed herself for not noticing what was right in front of her eyes – and those certainly hadn't been here when they arrived. Although that didn't explain why Darth Vader was supposed to be dead... she got the feeling that they had stumbled into something much bigger than they had been expecting. 

“So... the Emperor knows? This _was_ a trap?” Ezra sounded... panicked. “I was hoping...”

“Yeah.” Luke looked no more happy. “Me too. So... you think you can do it?”

Ezra nodded. “What exactly am I trying to get them to do?”

“Yeah, I've been thinking about that,” Luke said. “What might actually work on them. Even though things are under control up here it's a different story over the rest of the ship. When they sent over their boarding parties it sounds like the officers leading them basically issued a challenge to whomever they came across – Vader or the Emperor. Seems like we have more people on our side than we might have been expecting.”

Ezra shrugged. “It's Lord Vader,” he said, as though it was obvious. To Sabine it kriffing wasn't! A choice? What? Why? Someone needed to tell her this wasn't – couldn't _possibly_ – be what it sounded like. Vader was... he _was_ loyalty. That's why his damn posters and holopics were everywhere COMPNOR could conceivably stuff them. No way would Darth Vader of all people consider... treason. Which was what this... this _was_ , wasn't it? A split between Vader and the Emperor. Was he trying to take over? Take the Imperial Throne for himself? 

“Anyway, what you have to tell the Captain is that it's too dangerous to transport your prisoner to any of the hanger bays,” Luke said. “Um, and by prisoner I mean you Leia. Sorry... we're not actually going to hand you over or anything.”

Leia crossed her arms, scowling. With Vader on her mind Sabine tried not to compare the pose to something off a propaganda poster, with limited success. “I don't know why anybody put you in charge of planning anything _Luke,_ ” she said pointedly. “Because I don't recall your ideas being any better than Han's.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Solo said, looking affronted. His Wookie friend roared something. “Well you don't gotta take _her_ side.”

The Imp Captain standing behind Luke looked one step short of rolling his eyes. “Commander Skywalker,” he said quietly, “there's no need to take the opinions of _rebels_ into account.”

Luke shook his head. “Anyway, the point _is_ if Ezra can't take Leia that way, he still has to get off this ship somehow. If the Inquisitors are calling you a Jedi Leia, then probably the officers know about it too, and they won't want to take any risk of you escaping – not if the Emperor wants you personally. They'll want you on those ships and headed towards Coruscant as quickly as possible. So... right now the only other option – and the option Ezra is going to suggest – is to go out via the docks.”

“You're right Leia,” Captain Solo said. “This plan _is_ even worse than one of mine.” He paused as he realised how that had come out. Sabine might have laughed if this situation hadn't been as kriffed as it was. “Although obviously that would be easy... because my plans are excellent.” 

“ _Pirate_ ,” the sour-faced Imp said under his breath, with a genuinely impressive amount of venom. 

“They'll only send one of the Star Destroyers in to dock nearby,” Ezra warned. 

“Standard protocol is to maintain formation unless tactically necessary,” Luke said. “I hope that'll be enough.”

“Worth a try,” Ezra said, with surprising confidence. Last Sabine had checked the turbolasers weren't even working – or they hadn't been when _Ghost_ flew over them. Still, she and the rest of Spectre were in deep poodoo whatever the outcome of this. 

“Captain Piett, if you can hail those ships...”

So that was the Imp's name. The man nodded and strode off to give an order to someone in the command pits. In no time at all a comms screen at the side of the bridge snapped on, revealing the face of a nondescript pale-skinned man with a Captain's rank bar on his chest. Ezra stepped into view from their own side – everyone else was hovering where they could see but not be seen – even those lizard pets. 

“I don't recognise _you_ boy,” the Captain said. 

“I am the Twelfth Brother,” Ezra replied.

“Yes... you arrived late, via shuttle,” the man said, his eyes narrowing. “Explain yourself.”

“The missions of the Inquisitorius are not your concern Captain,” Ezra said, cold and hard in a way that wasn't like anything Sabine had seen from him... ever, really. “All that matters is that mine finished early enough to permit my deployment here, at the Emperor's command. I can report our success.”

The Captain looked him up and down for a moment. “I imagine that success was limited if _you're_ the one giving me this report rather than one of your superiors.”

“Vader was not easy to kill. There were many casualties, the Grand Inquisitor amongst them.”

“What a pity,” the other man said, without a hint of sincerity. “Well, I'm sure there are more of you ready to crawl out of... whatever backwater pisshole of a planet you come from. Now, am I to assume you also secured our prisoner?”

“Correct.” 

“Then why are you still waiting around? Bring her to me.”

“The fighting is too intense around the hangers. Her safety could not be guaranteed. She will have to be extracted some other way.” Ezra's hands were tight fists held behind his back. His pets were hissing, a low sussurrus like wind in the grass. 

The Captain sighed, short and sharp. “And do you have a _solution_ to this problem you've handed me Inquisitor?”

Ezra nodded. Sabine found she was almost holding her breath. Even if it didn't or shouldn't matter to her what the Captain of those three Star Destroyers did, there was still some part of her that thought of Ezra as... important. Theirs. At least, she would rather be on his side than that of this _di'kut_. She listened as Ezra calmly explained what they wanted the Imps to do, keeping her eyes on the man on the screen. Was he buying it? 

A strange lilt seemed to enter Ezra's voice. “You _will_ dock at Fondor Shipyards,” he said, bringing his hand out and sweeping it in a low, subtle arc. That was... familiar. Where had she seen that done before? 

Kanan. That was a Force thing! The Captain's eyes narrowed slightly, but then he grudgingly repeated what Ezra had just told him, then turned to someone off-screen and began issuing orders. The connection cut off. 

Ezra slumped. “I can't believe that worked,” he said. 

Luke smiled. “All thanks to you,” he said. “Now time for my bit.” 

Sabine watched him take a seat on the deck between the two bridge command pits, legs crossed and hands resting on his knees in a meditative pose she had seen plenty of times before – but from Jedi. Whatever this guy was, he was _not_ a Jedi – although not exactly an Inquisitor either. 

“Luke!” Leia called out, before Vader's son had a chance to get settled. “Are you sure you can do this alone?”

“No,” came the reply. “But what other choice do we have?”

Leia sighed, an explosive outrush of breath. “Fine,” she muttered to herself, and then louder; “Let me help you.”

Luke perked up. With that bright grin and sheer burning optimism he looked even younger than he was. It was hard to believe, looking at him, that he was related to someone as intimidating and terrifying as Vader. Ancestor's spirits, it was actually easier to believe it of Commander Organa – she had a soul as hard as beskar'gam. 

“Are you sure that's wise sir?” the trooper commander asked. 

“I can trust Leia,” Luke said calmly. “Let her through.”

Leia strode over and sat down next to her brother. Sabine could see the family resemblance. They looked... right together. 

“Be ready,” Luke told Captain Piett. “This might look a little... strange on the computers, but don't worry. Just leave this up to us.”

\----

To be entirely honest Luke didn't really know what he was doing. He was following the prompting of his own instincts and the Force itself, and he hoped it would be enough. At least, he was feeling a lot better about it now that Leia had joined him. He could feel how strong she was now that she knew how to touch the Force. If they joined their power together... 

What he intended meant accessing _Executor's_ weapons controls through the Force, instead of manually. He had never done this before, wasn't even sure if it was possible, but he knew machines. He was good with droids, with speeders and starfighters and pretty much any kind of machinery he had managed to get his hands on in his life thus far. Surely this couldn't be so very different? Slowly, carefully, making sure to stay very far away from the Dark that was even now offering itself to him with a kind of wounded eagerness like a kicked pet, he sank into the Force. Next to him he could sense Leia doing the same. The world opened up around him. He could feel the flows of life – _Executor_ , Fondor Shipyard, those Star Destroyers even now moving into position – he could feel how the Force moved through them and around them. They were all just grains of sand in a storm – but a storm that had within it patterns that he could perceive both great and small, and the suggestion of vastness at the edge of his comprehension. He tried not to let himself be distracted by all of it. 

His targets were there – hundreds of kilometres away but that space was narrowing, and even then it meant nothing to the Force. _Executor_ was a hum all around him; she was elegance, and beauty, and death. Luke felt haltingly towards her systems, knowing that they were there, knowing that he had managed to slip into a kind of oneness with his X-wing during the battle over the Death Star and trying to replicate that experience here. It was hard though; the fighter had been one small ship and this was... huge. Even if it was only this one part of her he was trying to control, that was still an order of magnitude more complex. 

_I'm here._ Leia's presence in the Force brushed against his own. She burned with Light, cold and clear as a desert morning before dawn's heat had arrived. _Together._

His Light wasn't quite the same as hers, although there was no way he could have said how. But they merged and melded and then it all seemed so easy. They were thinking as one, understanding as one, doing as one. They – _LukeLeia_ – slipped into _Executor's_ weapons system and showed it what they saw. They showed it the three Star Destroyers across the vastness of space, and then the guns leapt to their command. 

Sixty ion cannons fired, channelling power from reactors burning with the impossible strength at the hearts of stars. They fired straight and true, and left the enemy vessels floating momentarily dead in space. Then came the turbolasers, a second volley targeting vital systems no longer protected by heavy shields designed to bear the brunt of other capital ships' weaponry. Explosions bloomed in space, vents of atmosphere and broken durasteel debris. 

People were dying. Their pain echoed in the Force. Luke's flinch was instinctive, automatic. He shouldn't – it wasn't _right_ to shy away from what he'd done. He was responsible for this and he had to accept that – if he couldn't bear to pay the price he should never have acted in the first place... it was just that here, as deep in the Force and in the moment as he was it was all so raw. It hadn't been like this before, with the Death Star, even though he had killed far many more. He hadn't been sensitive to it, hadn't known what the sharp pain under his ribs had meant, that gut punch which had momentarily struck all the breath out of him. 

Leia felt his reaction and her presence steadied him. Together they drew back, finding their bodies again slowly – to do it too suddenly would have been dangerous, some part of him understood. Luke opened his eyes and blinked. The view from the bridge felt like looking in two dimensions where previously it had been three, curiously flat without the immersion of the Force. The three ships lay floating, not destroyed but certainly disabled. From one of the bridge pits Luke heard someone curse under their breath, voice breaking with a shiver of fear. 

They were all afraid, he realised, sensing the general mood. Captain Piett, the bridge officers... even the clone troopers to some small degree. What he and Leia had done... none of them had really believed it was possible, that it was going to work. Rex, Dogma and the others... they had worked with the Jedi of the Old Order though, surely they had seen _something_ like this before? Or knew what to expect from Force-users, at least? 

“Sir?” Captain Piett licked his lips very briefly, then continued in a stronger voice. “All targets have been neutralised. They no longer pose us any threat.”

“Good,” Luke said, relaxing slightly. Better than good, even. He was sure he wouldn't have been able to do that on his own. “Thank you Leia.”

“Did you think I was going to let yourself do something fool-hardy without having your back?” she replied. Her voice was light and breezy, but Luke could feel the deeper sentiment behind it. There was a bond between them now – or perhaps it had always been there but had required an experience like this for Luke to actually become aware of it. _You're my brother_ , Leia said through it.0 _I may not agree with what you're doing here, but I'm going to protect you._

Luke stood up, extending a hand to Leia to help her up after him. Suddenly he felt as weak as a newborn bantha-calf, and he might have sat right back down without Leia there to support him. “What now?” she asked him quietly. 

“I hadn't planned this far ahead,” he replied in the same undertone. “But I think we should be getting out of here as fast as possible. I wouldn't put it past the Emperor to have sensed that – he might send another fleet, and larger this time.”

“My opinions haven't changed,” Leia replied. She glared around at the Imperials that surrounded them. “You need to return to the Alliance with us – destroy this ship, destroy _Vader_.”

Luke let go of her hand – he hadn't realised he'd still been holding it. “No,” he said. “Never – I can't. Leia, can't you see I'm only trying to make things _better._ Maybe once we're out of here... I know I can explain better if you just give me a chance! I've learned so much; about the Jedi, about the Force, about our father...”

“He is _not_ my father,” Leia said, in little more than a sharp hiss. “Not in _any_ way that matters.”

Luke looked away. “Let's... talk about it later.” He looked towards Captain Piett. “Fire on the docking clamps as soon as the targeting solutions are ready and move us away. I'm going to talk to my father – I'll ask him about the hyperdrive.”

Piett nodded. “Yes sir.”

Leia folded her arms. “And we're still your prisoners, of course,” she said. 

Luke couldn't quite meet her eyes. She was right – there was no way he could order any of the rebels to be released, even those that the Empire wouldn't really care about, like Ezra's adopted family. The Imperial crew might be doing what he said right now, but he had no illusions; that was conditional on continuing to act like the person they _thought_ he was – Vader's Imperial son – not the Rebel Alliance pilot he _had_ been. That was going to cause a lot of problems down the road because he didn't think his father would be willing to let Leia go either – and he was realistically the only person who _could_ allow that. 

“Dogma,” he said instead. “Keep an eye on everyone while I'm gone.”

The clone saluted. “I'll make sure no-one does anything foolish sir.” 

“Ezra, you should come with me,” Luke added – he couldn't stop the ache of Leia's feelings of betrayal towards him or the self-doubt that some part of him thought that she was right – and he felt in need of some moral support. Ezra nodded. 

_Father,_ Luke said, reaching out through their bond. _We're safe for now. I'm coming._

There was no reply in words, but in emotions instead – his father's love and affection, his pride even though he couldn't yet know the details of what they'd done, and something... a reluctance for Luke to see him. Vader wanted to shield him from seeing his injuries. 

You know that would never matter to me father, Luke replied. But you are going to recover...?

_I shall._

A part of him – a large part – relaxed then. _We're on our way._ Vader might say that he was alright but Luke wouldn't fully believe that until he saw it with his own eyes. And perhaps he could ask his father what to do about Leia and the others, although that could never exactly be an _easy_ conversation. 

He just wanted to be able to stop worrying about these things for a few short minutes. 

\----

The General's son left, along with his Inquisitor and the boy's pets. Rex had never seen creatures like those and he didn't particularly want to meet any more; these ones might be trained to some degree but they were clearly predators of some kind. Although speaking of things he had never seen before... 

What had that _been?_

Rex prided himself on keeping abreast of current military knowledge, whether that be the tactics and equipment of ground-pounders like himself or those of the capital ships that carted said ground-pounders about. Admittedly some of that knowledge was technically classified by the Empire but even before he had committed himself to the Alliance he'd kept up acquaintances with several very useful slicers. He knew the basics of void-combat, and what their Imp Captain had said had been accurate – without calibration and very painstakingly programmed targeting computers, pulling off what they just had was... impossible. 

It wasn't that it was out of this ship's capabilities. She was designed to kill other capital ships, after all. But that was when she was fully built, and right now she _wasn't._ How could two kids come up with targeting solutions for what had to have been in total over a hundred heavy guns, each spaced hundreds of meters apart on _Executor's_ hull, and firing at three separate targets? Even with the Force, even in all his _experience_ of the Force, who could do something like that? 

General Skywalker's children, apparently. 

Rex shook himself out of his stupor. He was hardly the only one who could barely believe the evidence of their own eyes, judging by the reactions of the Imps on the bridge, but this wasn't the time for it. They were still prisoners, and their mission had been one-hundred percent kriffed now that Spectre had been captured as well. 

Commander Organa had stormed back over to her smuggler friend and was having her own angry conversation with him in hushed, tense voices – with a certain amount of input from the Wookie – so Rex took the opportunity to sidle over to Captain Syndulla. “You all okay?” he asked quietly. 

Hera shook herself out of her own thoughts. “We're... surviving,” she replied. “I'm starting to be concerned about what we've gotten ourselves into Rex. I _get_ the Force. I don't get this.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Rex said. “None of this is what I expected from this mission.”

“Me either,” Sabine added, her arms crossed protectively over her chest. “I didn't expect to see Ezra again, even if Leia had said he was still alive.”

“Bastard traitor killed the rest of our team,” Zeb growled. “Surprised he didn't kill us too, even if he was pretending to give a kriff for some reason. Damned Inquisitors everywhere – like that other kid. Vader's brat.”

“Careful,” Rex said. “That's Commander Organa's brother you're badmouthing.”

“Yeah, but she's not turned traitor. _He_ has. That's worse than being an Imp from the start, in my book.”

Rex wasn't so sure Luke was a traitor – but the others hadn't been here to hear the conversation between Luke and Leia. He could hardly blame them for thinking it. 

A hand landed on Zeb's arm, spinning him around. Rex took a step back in surprise – Dogma was crowding into the Lasat's space, and he'd taken one hand off his blaster carbine to prod a stiff finger into Zeb's chest. “Watch your mouth,” Dogma snarled. “You're a prisoner, rebel scum, and prisoners don't get to talk back.”

“Get your hands off me buckethead, or you'll be wishing I stuck to talking!” Zeb replied, baring his fangs. 

“There's no need for that,” Rex said sharply, managing to get in between them and pushing them apart. “Both of you calm down – no-one wants to cause trouble here.”

“Fine words from _you_ of all people _Captain,_ ” Dogma said. His voice was thick with emotion, and he reached up to pull off his helmet. He'd aged much the same as Rex had himself, and if he had harboured any doubts about his brother's identify those would have been dispelled by the tattoo across his face. It was still stark and black – he must have kept touching it up. “You were the best of us and now I find you're a _traitor?_ ”

Rex heard the indrawn breaths from behind him; the not-quite huffs of surprise. They hadn't known what to look for then, hadn't suspected what the identities of these particular troopers might be. Well he could hardly blame them for not knowing twenty year old history. 

“I'm not the traitor here Dogma,” he said. It was much as he'd thought. Dogma had given his loyalty to the wrong people again, and where Dogma and loyalty were concerned that was a durasteel-strong bond. But he'd seen the truth about Krell in the end, when there hadn't been any other choice. Could Rex make him see it again, or had the long-necks done their jobs too well? He could imagine how the experience of that one bad General could be twisted into a hate of the Jedi as a whole. 

“No?” Dogma hissed. He was making no attempt to hide his emotions – Rex could read the betrayal on his face. “You're running around with these rebels, these _terrorists._ You're a deserter, Rex. You abandoned us, abandoned the 501st, abandoned your General...”

“Darth Vader is _not_ my General,” Rex said. 

“ _Aruetii._ How dare you say that? Lord Vader is the _only_ General who stayed true, to us and to the Republic. Ask _any_ of us Rex, they'll tell you the same.”

“The Republic?” Rex scoffed. “You mean the Empire.”

“There's no difference,” Dogma replied. “So the Chancellor became the Emperor, he's the same kriffing man! I didn't fight – we didn't fight – so _dik'ut_ like you and your _friends_ could continue the Separatists' cause. Or worse, considering the sort of company you must've been keeping, the _Jedi_ cause.”

“We were made to serve the Jedi!”

“We were made to serve the _Republic_.” 

Rex shook his head in disgust – although hadn't been that blind himself once? It had taken a lot of digging, a lot of evidence, for him to see the truth that Fives had tried to tell them all. But it had been two decades since then, and if Dogma and the other remnants of the 501st couldn't see what evil was being done in the Empire's name by now what kind of men were they? 

Their argument was drawing attention from the rest of the bystanders on the bridge. Rex could feel their eyes on him. But this was between brothers – _they_ wouldn't butt in, letting Dogma argue their side, and they wouldn't let any of the Imps intervene either until it was over. Rex grit his teeth, trying to think of something, _anything_ he could use to show Dogma the truth. 

“You want to know _why_ I left the 501st?” he said. 

“I'm sure you've got what you think is a very noble excuse,” Dogma sneered. “But that's all it is. An excuse for your disloyalty.”

“You remember Fives.”

“The ARC trooper?” Now Dogma looked surprised and a little suspicious. “Of course, but what has that to do with anything? He was driven out of his mind when he took his own aggression chip out.”

“That's _not_ what happened,” Rex replied, unable to keep the sharpness, the anger, out of his voice. Even after so long the injustice of what had happened to Fives still burned, kept him up at night at times. The thought that if they'd managed to do something differently they could have saved... everyone. “I was _there,_ Dogma. I heard his story myself, and so did General Skywalker.”

Dogma paused. “Keep talking.”

“It wasn't taking out the chip that made him try to kill Chancellor Palpatine,” Rex said. “It was what he'd found out about the man. About his plans.”

Dogma rolled his eyes. “You think any of us is going to believe in some sort of vast conspiracy, which I'm sure is what you're about to come out with?” 

“I didn't believe it at first either,” Rex told him. “Not until I dug a little deeper and found the proof. Turning the Republic into the Empire, setting himself up as a tyrant... none of that was born of necessity. It was his plan all along! Even the war – nothing more than some giant shell-game, set up to weaken the Republic and make it easier for _him_ to take over!”

“This is the kind of propaganda your rebel friends have been feeding you?” Dogma asked with disgust. 

“I said I'd found proof didn't I!” Rex said. “It was all to do with the chips! With the kriffing _nightmares_ every. Single. One of us had back then. It was never about aggression. That's not what they're for. I found that much when I had mine taken out and analysed at an independent medical facility.”

“Now things are starting to make sense,” Dogma said. His expression was unpleasant. “You _utreekov,_ Rex! No wonder you're a turncoat – you took your chip _out._ After seeing what it did to Fives as well. I guess we can't blame you anymore since you haven't been in your right mind for the last twenty years!”

Rex groaned in frustration. “You're just not _getting_ it Dogma. The chips are for _controlling_ us. Turning us into damn meat clankers! Were you around for Order 66 or did the long-necks still have their hands on you then? Didn't you feel... not yourself?”

Dogma shook his head. “The General came for me after the Jedi were dealt with,” he said. “But I've spoken to our brothers who were there, at the temple. It wasn't... pleasant. What had to be done. But it was necessary. I don't blame anyone for trying to forget it, to distance themselves from it.”

“And our brothers who turned their blasters on themselves afterwards?” Rex snarled. “You don't think maybe there's a kriffing reason... that they were horrified by what had been done to them?” 

“They were defective,” Dogma snapped back. “We're _designed_ not to break like that!”

Rex couldn't help himself. He punched Dogma in the face. 

The reaction was instantaneous. Half a dozen blasters were suddenly pointed his way, and a couple of brothers grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him backwards, blaster muzzles digging into his ribs. He swore at them, struggling at first, but quickly forced himself to stop. This wasn't helping. Getting himself shot wouldn't help anyone. Dogma straightened up, wiping his mouth where a trickle of blood was coming from a split lip. 

“You're nicely proving my point I see,” he said. “Aggressive _and_ defective.”

“Let me guess – all of _you_ still have your chips in,” Rex said. “And you really think Vader has your best interests at heart?”

“He's the _only_ General who didn't betray their men,” Dogma said sharply. “And I'll not have you speaking against him.”

“He knew about the chips,” Rex shouted. “He knew because of Fives and because _I_ told him as well! But he didn't _listen._ To _me_. He tried to tell me he knew the Chancellor and he would never do something like that but how could anyone go on believing that after everything he's done since as the Emperor!”

“Be quiet Rex,” Dogma warned him. “I've let you have your say and it's no more than I expected. Be quiet before you make any of us do something you'll regret.”

Rex clenched his jaw so tightly he thought his teeth might crack under the pressure. It was the only way to stop himself speaking, shouting, screaming at the damn _wrongness_ of it all. He let himself be shoved back against the wall and didn't move once he was let go. Dogma was too stubborn – he didn't have the first idea about how to get through to him. 

There would be no help coming from that quarter.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vader tries to stop people fussing over his health, and a plan of escape is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for: mentions of torture; poor self-worth/slave mentality.

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , docked above Fondor, Tapani Sector**

This was an old and familiar pain. Fighting for breath, light-headed, halfway to losing consciousness, Vader's awareness faded in and out. The Force was all that remained clear to him. The Dark Side crowded to him eagerly; he fed it the ache in his bones, the agony of twitching muscles and nerves, and it gave him in return the strength to continue forcing air in and out of his lungs now that the machinery which ought to be doing the job lay still and dead. Inside the sterile safety of his hyperbaric chamber that air was thick and heavy with oxygen, allowing Kix's sure, steady hands to strip enough of the suit from him to begin to make the necessary repairs. No space for the flame of the Light here.

Kix had never done this before. It had never previously been necessary. The Emperor had his own people, droids and humans close by in the Imperial Palace to provide any medical care which his Master had deemed fit. At times when Sidious had not held the lightning on him for so long, had made his displeasure plain with only the slightest lick of it, Vader had been left to make the repairs on his own. He knew intimately the workings of the machinery that kept him alive. He could guide Kix now – if only he could concentrate well enough to do it. 

Lightning-shock made that difficult. Made his head foggy, his thoughts dull and disjointed. But he was used to fighting through that. 

He had been foolish in any case. He had even suspected that Sidious knew more than was safe for any of them, and he had been arrogant enough, sure of his own abilities, to think that it would not matter. Yes, he had survived this, but it had not been because of anything he himself had done. Had Luke not arrived he would now be lying dead, useless – and no more than he deserved. Perhaps at least Leia might have found some small pleasure in his death even though it would only have meant he had failed to protect her a second time. Those Inquisitors had not been for him alone. 

Had Sidious known the full truth of that? Had he suspected whose daughter Leia was? It didn't matter. Even if Vader's lie to him had held, he would have no longer been there to bring her out of the training complex on Mustafar to somewhere she would truly be safe. 

Kix's fingers were touching him; the light pressure of bare hands on synthskin – although even that was enough to prick like needles. “Lord Vader,” the clone said softly, voice slightly muffled by the air-tight mask he was wearing – protection against the thick, pressurised air. “I need to you show me how to replace this next circuit – there's far too many important things near it for me to go poking around unguided.”

He tried to concentrate. Lifted a hand to brush over the internals of the control box – except that he no longer had that hand. Uttering a rough noise of irritation he switched to the other. He had taught himself to use both equally when he was a child, both to make himself more valuable and to assist with his work in Watto's shop. 

Why was he thinking about that? It held no relevance.

Slowly he led Kix through the task, although he could not fully prevent his mind from wandering. Luke. Luke had come... somehow he had known what Vader himself had not. Had it been the Force? Had it made sure of his presence here? There seemed no other possibility. He was only glad his son had listened – and more than that, that he had finally been willing to do what was necessary and call upon the Dark Side, bring it to heel under his command. Luke had been every bit the Sith he had always been destined to be. A Sith to overmatch the Emperor, to destroy him and rule in his place. A Master worth serving, Vader thought with pride. 

Alkamar might have her points, but Luke would be foolish to turn away the strength that lay in the Dark. 

More than just a source of power, it had been important for Luke to show the lesser Inquisitors what he was truly capable of. On the bridge, injured as he was Vader had been aware of little more than the Force itself, but that had been enough to show him how they had quailed in the face of his son's wrath. They had respected the strength that could so easily destroy them, and had surrendered. No longer were they obedient only to the commands of Lord Sidious – and although under other circumstances Vader would have liked nothing better than to kill them for daring to attack him he could appreciate that they still had some use. This coup had been declared, for better or worse, and he did not fool himself that his and Luke's side was so strong that they could afford to discard a dozen Inquisitors. 

The Twelfth Brother had proven himself useful enough. Let them see if his fellows could do the same. 

“Is this any better?” Kix asked him. 

Gradually, hesitantly, the heavy wheeze of his respirator started up once again, filling the air of the small space. Vader blinked tired eyes, feeling a little of the pain and tightness in his chest beginning to ease. It was not... optimal, but that would require much more specialised equipment than was available here. “It will suffice,” he said. He realised that he did not even know where Kix had managed to find what parts he had been using... but when he forced himself upright out of the chair and saw the scattered remains of several droids littering the floor of the chamber that puzzle was quickly solved. 

Although... hadn't Artoo been there, on the bridge with him? Quickly he reached out for that familiar muted droid presence – and found it, just outside. It made some sense; there was little space inside the hyperbaric pod, not to mention that its configuration would make it impossible for the little astromech to get in. Artoo had been speaking to him as they travelled from the bridge to here – a constant warbling in binary that he had not been concious enough to translate. No doubt Artoo was worried. Vader would be able to reassure him on that point, once more repairs were made.

“It's barely a fix,” the clone said, sounding worried. “As soon as I can work out how to get a properly pressurised environment in the medbay or a way to fit a whole theatre kit and a bacta tank in here...”

“That will not be necessary,” Vader said. “I can make further repairs myself, but at present we have more pressing matters to deal with.”

“Your son is taking care of that sir,” Kix told him, taking a quick step sideways to put himself between him and the chamber's control panel. 

Yes... he had heard Luke's voice stretched along the bond between then. Felt the concern, the worry. It had been... touching. To know that his son had found it in his heart to have at least some positive emotions for him. Luke had spoken and he had said... something back. He did not recall. Yet he did not mean to leave the boy alone at a time like this when there was still so much potential danger. 

He reached out to the Dark for strength. The respirator might have been sufficiently cobbled back together, but the electricity that had struck him had been enough to destroy the motivators in his prosthetics, and Kix had not had a chance to begin to think about fixing those yet. That did not matter. He had forced these cybernetics into full and fluid motion with the power of the Dark Side before, and he could do it now. But something stopped him. There was a stirring in the Force. A sense of... breathless anticipation. Something welling up with bright and terrible power in the Light. 

Luke. And Leia. Vader watched, fascinated, as they came together in the Force and became something even greater than either of them alone. From here he could not tell what aim they bent their combined energies towards but he could sense the way the world moved around them, organising itself at their command. It lasted long moments, and then that wonderful power loosed and burst apart, returning to the Force. 

Vader allowed Kix to gently push him back down into his chair, marvelling at what he had sensed. “It appears my children have everything well in hand,” he said out loud. Kix twitched. 

“Children, sir?”

Ah yes. He had not informed the clones about Leia. There would no longer be any point in keeping it from them, or indeed from anyone. If Sidious had not known before he would certainly know now. He would have been focusing all his attention on the outcome of this trap he had so carefully laid, and _that_ display had not been subtle. “I have two children,” he told Kix. “Twins; a son and a daughter stolen by the Jedi.”

Kix frowned. “So... that's Luke and...” 

“Commander Leia Organa,” Vader replied. He watched Kix's reaction with faint amusement. He knew his men and Kix was a gossip. The news would have spread throughout the 501st by tomorrow.

_Father,_ Luke spoke in his mind, reaching out through their bond. He was tired, but satisfied. _We're safe for now. I'm coming._

Vader sent back his deep pride, his love. Whatever Luke had done with his sister had to have been impressive indeed – he did not need to see it with his own eyes to know that much. However he also sensed Luke's intention to check up on him. There was no need for that. His son should be concentrating on _Executor,_ not on his health. And... half out of his suit like this, prosthetics and synthskin bare, he found himself reluctant to let his son see the extent of what Kenobi had done to him. 

_You know that would never matter to me father,_ Luke replied. _But you are going to recover...?_

_I shall,_ he send back. He had not managed to convince Luke in any way, and to say more would mean revealing his reasons for it. Vader consoled himself with the fact that perhaps there would not be a mask available for Luke like the one Kix was wearing – he didn't even know where the clone had gotten it from. It appeared to be some kind of modification of medical equipment. Perhaps a quarantine mask. 

“Luke is coming here,” he said. 

“Good,” Kix replied. “Then there's no need for you to exert yourself sir. I'll comm Gamma and see if he can find another one of these.” He tapped the hard plastic of the mask over his mouth and nose. Vader glared at him. 

“Help me back into my suit,” he demanded. “I will leave the chamber to speak to him.”

“Oh it's no trouble sir – there are dozens of these down in the medbay,” Kix said, cheerfully ignoring his clear intentions. He tapped the comm on his wrist. “Gamma...”

Vader growled with irritation, but let the clone do what he wanted. So be it. He found he did not have the energy for the argument.

It was not long before he felt Luke's unmistakable Force presence draw near – nor was he alone. The Twelfth Brother was with him. He _certainly_ would not be permitted entrance. There were also two others, weaker but clearly of the Dark Side. Not sentients, Vader realised, but some kind of animal. Just what had the Inquisitor brought onto his ship? Surely it couldn't be what he now very much suspected it was. 

Vader was going to find which member of the garrison had allowed those two _children_ out of Bast Castle and make them regret their foolishness. 

A fist knocked on the plasteel shell of the hyperbaric chamber. Kix raised the wrist-comm to his mouth and started issuing instructions. Vader ignored what he was saying, reaching out through the Force instead. 

_Luke. I am very proud of you._

_You shouldn't be,_ Luke replied. _I lost control – I used the Dark Side even though I said I never would._

_That is nothing to be ashamed of,_ Vader told him. _It only proves to you and everyone else who witnessed your power just what you are capable of. But it was not that to which I referred._

_Then what?_

_You were able to work together with your sister,_ Vader clarified. 

_You... saw that?_ Luke was clearly confused – obviously he had not been aware of just how visible their display had been in the Force. 

_I sensed it,_ Vader told him. _But I could not see what you did with your joint meditation._

_Better for you just to look – I'm not entirely sure how to explain it,_ Luke said, and then images were being thrust along the link towards him; bits and pieces of memory. Vader absorbed them, let them wash over him so that he could examine them from the inside. He had not known what to expect – but of all things certainly not _this._

_Son... you do not comprehend the magnitude of what you have done,_ he said. A part of him was jealous. Executor was _his_ , and to make himself a part of her like that...

_Surely it isn't that amazing compared to what the Jedi Order could do._

_No Jedi in centuries could have managed a thing like that,_ Vader told him, making sure to project his sincerity. He did not wish Luke to think he was merely humouring him. Luke's disbelief was still plainly felt, but this form of communication was not one easily designed for lying. He would accept it as the truth, once he fully comprehended it.

“Lord Vader,” Kix said, getting his attention. “I'm going to open the chamber briefly to allow Commander Skywalker inside.”

Vader nodded. “You may proceed.”

The interlocking teeth of the chamber hissed apart with an outwards gust of pressure. The oxygen concentration surrounding him immediately plummeted, leaving him short of breath, but with his respirator repaired it was easily borne for a short while. Luke stood outside looking nervous and worried, accompanied by the Twelfth Brother and... two hssiss. If he'd had the breath for it he would have sighed. As he had thought. 

And of course Artoo was there. 

[That kriffing Sithling has damaged you!] the droid beeped furiously. [How karking dare it! Let me in – I can help repair you!]

“Kix has my care well in hand,” Vader told the astromech – not that it did much good. Artoo always had been stubborn. But it seemed his booster jets were non-functional, for as much as he knocked against the casing of the pod he made no other effort to get in. 

Vader returned his attention to the hssiss. The creatures appeared placid. They looked at him over the lip of the chamber with keen interest, long tongues flicking out to catch his scent. He growled and drew on the Dark Side. He was a Sith Lord – of all the predators here he was the fiercest. Much like Inquisitors, the hssiss respected power, and as he had expected they dropped their gaze, twisting their heads to the side to expose their necks in a submissive gesture. Good. 

Vader looked away from the animals towards Luke, who was being helped between the teeth into the limited space of the hyperbaric chamber by Kix. He had already fitted the air-tight mask over the boy's face. The Twelfth Brother would have to remain outside where he belonged. 

[You better not close this karking pod again!] Artoo warbled. Vader ignored him – he would apologise later. 

The teeth lowered, sliding back into lock with a quiet click. Luke crouched next to his chair – the space had never been designed for more than one person, and it was now uncomfortably crowded. His son stared at him, drinking in every little detail; a level of scrutiny which made him want to turn his head away. But he sensed no pity from Luke. No, he was not precisely sure _what_ that emotion was. 

“I should have gotten here sooner,” Luke said. “I should have stopped this.”

“What did the Force show you?” Vader asked him, hating the rasping weakness of his unaugmented voice. Had it been of the same ilk as his own visions? Precognition did not strike any two Force-users in the same way in what little experience he had of it. Certainly Kenobi had never spoken of the utter vivid reality that Vader's dreams had been, touch and taste and smell, not just sight. Kenobi's visions had been fleeting things almost impossible to interpret – only another factor in the decision to keep his dreams a secret from his first Master. 

“I saw you fighting the Inquisitors and I saw this ship,” Luke said. “I saw you... I woke up in a panic and went to Dogma straight away. But if we had been quicker getting to the bridge from the hanger...”

“It is foolish to consider such things,” Vader said, an attempt at comfort. But old memories had been stirred in his mind. What Luke had accomplished was far more success than he had ever had. What if the first time he had dreamed of his mother's death he had simply... left the Temple. If he had taken one of their Aethersprites and flown to Tatooine. Then... 

No. As he had told his son, it did not do to dwell too heavily on such things. Even in meditation, when he had been trying to draw on as much strength of anger or hate as possible, he had shied away from using his visions as fuel. It would have felt like sullying their memories. His mother... And Padmé...

“You _are_ going to be alright though?” Luke asked, yet again. “There won't be any kind of long-term effects?”

“If there were I imagine they would have made themselves plain many years ago,” Vader said... although he had not meant to say that much. Perhaps his thoughts were still more muddled by the lightning than he had suspected, to loosen his tongue to such an extent. 

“Sir,” Kix said sharply. “You mean to say this isn't the first time you've been hit by that kind of attack?”

“You know it isn't,” Vader said, irritated. Kix might have more properly been his men's medic but he still had access to the Jedi medical records in case other aid wasn't available in the heat of battle. He had to be aware of the numerous occasions he had been shocked. 

“I'm not talking about the war, and neither were you, sir!” Kix replied, with an edge of genuine anger. “And even then no-one was shooting lighting out of their fingertips at you!”

That was not in fact correct, but given the Jedi Council's obsessive focus on secrecy when it came to anything about the Sith he supposed he could not blame Kix for being unaware of that fact. 

“Father,” Luke was frowning. “Ezra told me that was a Force ability only Sith Lords are meant to know, so... did Sidious...?”

“It was convenient for him,” Vader admitted, “but it is immaterial now. Once we can be sure of _Executor's_ safety I will complete the remaining repairs to myself and that shall be the end of it.”

“Convenient for _what_?” Luke demanded. Vader did not understand why this seemed to matter to him so much, but his son could be persistent. It was better to tell him _something._

“For discipline,” he said. 

Luke looked at him with eyes wide and pained. 

Kix shifted uncomfortably. “And this was a... common occurrence sir?”

“Even I am not infallible Kix,” Vader replied, feeling a stab of anger. Not so much at the medic, but at Sidious who had failed to appreciate this fact. Sith or not, there were times when anyone would be unsuccessful – but that was not the kind of excuse that would work on his former Master. Nor was Sidious' definition of failure always the same as his own. 

“That's horrible!” Luke said. The words came out half-choked, damp. Luke's compassion was getting the better of him again. He felt there should be some way to reassure him, but nothing came to mind. “I saw what that did to you...”

“It is of no concern,” Vader insisted, feeling that he was fighting a losing battle here in a war he genuinely didn't understand. “I have survived this before, and far worse things also.”

“You shouldn't have to just _survive,_ ” Luke said quietly. “You shouldn't... be hurt like that. I knew Sidious was evil, I shouldn't be _surprised_ but...”

“I don't know how you can call that discipline sir,” Kix added. “All I do know is that you would never do something like that to any of us in the 501st.” 

“None of this is relevant,” Vader told them. “Luke, you came here to speak about _Executor._ ”

“Don't try to change the subject Father. Please at least tell me the Emperor let you see a medic afterwards?”

“What possible relevance...”

“So, no then.” Luke looked away. He was trying to keep a hold on his distress in the Force, but as yet there had never been the time to teach him adequate shielding. He was not having much success. “Kix...?”

Kix nodded. “Sir, I don't think you appreciate the kind of damage electric shocks can do to someone. Without proper bacta treatment... the effects will just build and build. It can affect your memory, it can lead to chronic pain that just can't be fixed... And that's not the only thing. Sir I wasn't going to bring this up but... I have some serious concerns about your cybernetics. Kriff, about _all_ of the life-support adjuncts some scalpel-jockey has grafted into you!” 

Pain? Vader had been in pain ever since Mustafar and he doubted a little more or less would make much difference. He had long ago accepted this state of affairs, and Sidious had taught him how to make use of it so there was at least some benefit to it. He had never had any concerns about his memory. Kix was worrying his son needlessly. As for his cybernetics... “As I said I will be able to make the necessary repairs at a more appropriate time.”

Kix sighed. “Repairs are all very well sir, but what about _upgrades?_ All of that... it's Clone Wars era tech. I _know_ there's better out there, hells, and so do you! Or do you expect me to forget who got Shortstack his new legs?”

“Shortstack is not a Sith,” Vader replied. “And nor is he me. He deserves the best cybernetics available.”

From his side Luke let out a soft noise. Not quite a whimper, but a wounded noise all the same. “And you don't?” he asked quietly. 

That... was not what he had meant. Although it was not untrue. But he was not fool enough to miss that Luke's compassionate nature would not allow him to accept that. “I do not require them,” he said instead. “These fit my purposes at present.”

Kix snorted in disgust. “I know enough about obsolete tech to know that those are crude and frankly terrible. Strong, sure, but how often did sentients lose a limb back before the war? No major company had bothered with prosthetics for centuries – not enough money in it. When there was a need again... look, the neural connections in those are just _bad_. Sir, doesn't it _hurt_?”

“A Sith does not bow to pain,” Vader growled, “they _use_ it to harness the strength of the Dark Side. That is the purpose of pain.”

“Father _please,”_ Luke said. “Let Kix get you something _better._ If you won't do it for yourself, do it for me?”

It was his first instinct to refuse, but he could not ignore his son's distress and turmoil. Even if he needed the strength the pain gave him, it was not as though simply upgrading his prosthetics would entirely take it away. He had spent enough time studying the developments in the field to know that – not for his own sake of course, but for his clones. Mechanics was easy, neurology was not. Even the most modern technology was imperfect, and given the degree of scarring that had built up over the years around the joins between metal and flesh there would still be pain. 

Now that he thought about it, hadn't he made such an argument to Sidious at one time? Not that his Master had been pleased with the idea – had categorically denied it. But he was no longer obligated to bow to the old man's wishes, but to those of his son. 

“If that is what you want Luke,” he said. 

“It is Father, thank you.” Luke looked so relieved that he could not regret agreeing. It remained to be seen how well that process would go. He had considered various improvements of his own design in the past, the result of idle moments' thought. If he was to do this, he was not willing to sacrifice function – there should be no half measures. 

“ _Now_ may we speak of _Executor?_ ” he said. Surely this had been enough discussion of his medical care, particularly given how unnecessary it all was. 

“Yes...” Luke gave himself a little shake, concentrating. It was almost possible to sense him forcing his thoughts in a new direction through the familial bond. “We should have moved out of orbit by now under sublight engine power, but as Captain Piett says we won't be going anywhere else until we can be sure of the hyperdrive.”

“It has not yet been tested,” Vader said, voicing what he was sure would have been Piett's concern. One which was not unfounded. Naturally basic diagnostics would have been performed when the hyperdrive was initially constructed as well as its compatibility with _Executor's_ systems at installation. But when it came to unmooring nineteen kilometres of starship from the bounds of space-time itself any mistake would be fatal. 

“Yes – and about Captain Piett... he says he's loyal to you, that he's been working for you all along.”

“That is correct.”

“Ah, good.” Luke relaxed. “I thought he was telling the truth but after having the Dark Side so close I wasn't sure if I could trust myself. So, the hyperdrive - how long does testing that normally take?” 

“Several days, under normal circumstances,” Vader replied. Which would leave them stranded in the Emperor's trap – one which would surely soon have reinforcements arriving. However... “There is a less standard way of testing a hyperdrive.”

“Already I don't like this plan,” Kix said under his breath. 

“In the Outer Rim it is common for ships to be built or adapted from whatever parts are available,” Vader explained. “Including hyperdrives, many of which were never designed for the ships in which they are placed. It is usual to perform stress-testing by activating the hyperdrive – without intending to move anywhere.”

“I've never even heard of that,” Luke said – it was clear he was sceptical even though he trusted Vader to know of what he spoke. That was natural; his son had spent his entire life on Tatooine. He might expect that if such a technique existed he would have heard of it. But it was also very clear that Luke had been sheltered on that planet, from what little Vader knew of his life there – and it struck him that he had not even _asked._ Was his distaste for the planet of his birth so much that he would avoid speaking of it even if it would offer him valuable information about his son's youth? That would have to be remedied – but now was not the time. 

“The function is merely to establish the integrity of the hyperspace bubble,” Vader said. “If that is safe, then a small jump can be attempted, gradually building up distance. This should serve our interests – it will also make us more difficult to track.”

Luke nodded slowly. “I suppose it makes sense,” he said. “I'll go and speak to Captain Piett – you should stay here Father. You need to rest after what's happened.”

“Sir, I concur,” Kix added. “And I really think you should have a soak in bacta as soon as I can arrange it.”

That would be a waste of bacta, the more so since their split from the Empire would make replenishing their supplies difficult. But he felt suddenly exhausted. He lacked the energy to fight over that topic right now. Better to discuss it later, and for now do as his son and his medic wished. He would rest – Luke had shown himself capable of managing matters in the meantime.

\---- 

Piett had a headache, and his bridge was full of rebels. Neither was putting him in a good mood. At least _Executor_ was now floating free from the docks. Lieutenant Jutai's targeting solutions had been excellent, resulting in minimal damage to the ship's hull where the clamps had been blasted free, but that didn't make the fresh scars on her otherwise pristine durasteel plating any easier to look at. He doubted Lord Vader would be any more pleased about them than he was – but that was Skywalker's problem, not his. 

Vader's son... he had hardly believed it, but the young man did have a strange kind of magnetism to him. And besides, he had the same unnatural abilities as his father – and as the apparent Jedi Leia Organa. What they had managed to do together... taking over _Executor's_ systems like that... 

Axxila had been part of the Separatists during the Clone Wars, and as such all their tales of Jedi Generals were stories of monsters used to keep small children obedient, or among adults as oathbreakers and warmongers who despite their fearsome powers would still be defeated by the superior technological might of the Separatist droid armies. He had been young, sceptical – he had not believed half of the rumours. The scouring of the Jedi Order from the galaxy had only confirmed what he thought he knew of them – certainly their abilities had not saved them from the consequences of their power-hungry actions. Now though... even knowing what Lord Vader was capable of hadn't prepared him for _that_. 

How had Organa's powers gone unnoticed this long? She had been an Imperial Senator! Had no-one seen her for what she was in all her time in the Senate? 

At least Skywalker was on _their_ side, whatever his past – a topic Piett was sure would be unsafe to speculate upon. Aside from Lord Vader, there had been no _Imperial_ survivors of the attack on the Death Star, after all. Still, he had enough influence with this band of rebel scum to keep them under control, even to enlist their help to a degree. And he had gone for further instructions from Lord Vader, which settled Piett's mind somewhat. He trusted Darth Vader to manage this situation. 

Even in the short time Skywalker had been gone one fight had almost broken out, and between soldiers who really ought to know better. Of course he did understand that it must be distressing for these veterans – these _clones,_ which was another surprise – to see that one of their number had turned traitor and was working with terrorists. But that was no call to nearly provoke a brawl on _his_ bridge. 

While he waited, Piett strode over to look down at Lieutenant Avin's terminal. The boy had been monitoring the fighting amongst their stormtroopers – still led by General Veers, which was a relief. It would have made things difficult if the General had decided to throw in his lot with the Emperor rather than Lord Vader. Things seemed to be going reasonably well, although it was a slow slog. _Executor_ was simply too big; there were too many places where a stubborn group of troopers could bed themselves in. 

The turbo-lift doors slid open and Commander Skywalker stepped out. Excellent. Piett snapped to attention, noting that the clone troopers had done the same. It was clear where their prime loyalties lay. The young man appeared slightly distracted, but he came over to Piett and stood next to him, starting out at the now much smaller orb of Fondor and the disabled Star Destroyers that still lay above it. 

“I've spoken to my Father,” the boy said. “And he has a plan for the hyperdrive.”

“I am ready to carry out Lord Vader's commands,” Piett replied calmly. He remained calm up until the point that Skywalker explained what he proposed to do – keeping his cool became much more difficult after that. He did not want to do this. It wasn't that he was completely unfamiliar with the technique given his past experience with Outer Rim pirates, but what worked on a few hundred meters of freighter had no guarantee of working on a ship of this magnitude. 

But this had come from Darth Vader himself. He had seen what the man's son could do to someone who displeased him. The corpses might be gone but that didn't mean Piett wanted to join their number. He had very little choice. 

“We will begin preparations to carry this out,” he said, uncomfortably aware of the cold sweat dripping along his spine and making his undershirt stick to his back and chest. “What are our headings for the first jump?”

“Bassado, along the Shipwright's Trace,” Skywalker replied. 

“As you wish, sir.” And hopefully they wouldn't all die in the process.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ezra and Luke consider the fates of their friends, the Rebels have a much-needed conversation, Aphra organises a muster, and some Inquisitors argue.

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , in hyperspace**

Ezra didn't go back to the bridge with Luke. Not right away. He hadn't expected to see his old crew again – although he shouldn't have been surprised. What else could the Force have been telling him? It had a horrible sort of inevitability to it. Not horrible because they were alive, but horrible because he had felt just what they thought of him. How much they hated him. They didn't understand that he had done what was necessary to protect them, to save their lives from the Empire... but he supposed if they had understood then they wouldn't be rebels, terrorists. He loved all of them, a quiet and aching emotion that the Dark Side had no use for, but he couldn't change who they were. 

He didn't want to be their enemy. They weren't giving him any choice though. 

_Sorrow,_ the hssiss thought at him, curling their curiously warm reptilian bodies around him. _Sorrow why? Enemies? Bad things? To die, to be killed?_

_No,_ Ezra sent back. There wasn't anything they could do to make him feel any better except to just exist for him. He couldn't explain a problem this complicated to them, and even if he could he doubted any advice their animal minds might give him would be very helpful. 

At some point he was going to have to come out of this little room he had found and face everyone again. He wasn't looking forward to it. 

Luke had left to pass on orders from Lord Vader. He'd asked Ezra to come with him, although why he didn't know. It wasn't as though he had been of any use to Luke. He had just stood around outside the hyperbaric chamber and waited for him to come out. It had felt as though he was trespassing just by being there. Lord Vader's injuries had clearly been serious. Ezra had gotten a glimpse of him when the chamber opened up. His helmet had been off, the black suit stripped down to the waist to bare a complicated mess of metal and circuitry which had seemed to be actually implanted into flesh and bone. He had looked away quickly – showing weakness was never permitted and Vader would _not_ have wanted anyone to see him like that. The penalty for doing so... 

He shouldn't even be thinking about it. But it was hard not to. He'd known that Vader needed a life-support system, that it was part of why he wore the suit that he did. He just had never thought particularly hard about what that might actually _mean._

Vader's skin had been pale, almost as white as stormtrooper armour where it wasn't cut through by webs of scarring – and there had been so much scarring. Even on his face, on his bald scalp, around those true-Sith golden eyes... what had _happened_ to him? Even the rumours – and his fellow Inquisitors had many – never suggested anything that would have been as terrible as that.

Ezra didn't think Lord Vader had noticed him staring. He wouldn't still be alive if he had. The only thing he had cared about was his son – although he had spared a few moments of his attention observing the hssiss. The animals themselves had been only respectful of him, which Ezra was glad of. 

Around him, the ship was giving off a low rumble. The Force moved, jumped in that particular way which signaled a transition into hyperspace. Ezra got to his feet. Even if no-one else was, Luke would be wondering where he'd gotten off to. He should go and find him. Luke might need him for something again.

\----

Leia hadn't been entirely certain she was doing the right thing when she offered to help Luke, but once they had meditated together, controlled the Force together with a oneness of mind and purpose which even now in its aftermath seemed barely possible to her, she felt certain that she had done the right thing. There had been no trace of the Dark Side in Luke while they were working together. He had been her brother, the man she knew him to be, not a monster constructed by all that was evil in the Force. It had given her some peace of mind about him – and she couldn't deny the victory that was disabling three Imperial Star Destroyers either. Since she could see no way of taking down _Executor_ at present, she would take the next best thing. 

She had held out some hope that Captain Syndulla's team might still make it to the engine room and sabotage it, but that had been dashed when the Inquisitor called the Twelfth Brother appeared with them held captive. Or he had brought the Spectre crew – none of the commandos who had been with them were anywhere to be seen. Dead or taken to the brig, she wondered? 

Han had wanted to know what the hell was going on with Luke, of course. Leia had tried to explain it to him, but she'd found that explaining the Force was a great deal harder than using it. Even relying on what Ahsoka had told her, borrowing her words, she could tell that he wasn't really understanding it. It didn't help that her cybernetic hand had been sending shocks of pain up her arm ever since Vader had crushed it during their fight. It had left her unable to move the fingers more than a little, but otherwise there wasn't much obvious external sign of damage. She didn't think anyone else had noticed. Frankly it was the least of their problems at the moment. 

Speaking of Vader, he still seemed to still be alive as well. His shadowy presence remained nearby where she could sense him, and Luke had returned from his little side trip with instructions from him. It was still a mystery to Leia how her brother could trust him in any way. He had to _know_ that Vader didn't have his best interests at heart. He might be their father, might be using that relationship to manipulate Luke, but that was all it was. He didn't care about either of them in the way a real parent would. He _couldn't._ The Dark Side would make it impossible. 

Luke spoke with the ship's Captain, then came over to her again. 

“We're going to be making small jumps at first,” he told her. “Heading along the Shipwright's Trace. I don't know exactly what destination our father has in mind.”

“Why are you bothering to tell me this?” Leia asked him, keeping her voice frosty. She might be satisfied he hadn't fallen to the Dark Side, but the fact remained that he was still working with the Empire – or with Darth Vader's portion of the Empire now, she supposed. “We're your prisoners.”

“You still have a right to know what's going on,” Luke replied. He looked tired, worn out. Leia couldn't blame him; what they'd done with the Force earlier had left her feeling the same way. 

“So now everyone on this ship is at war with the Emperor, is that right?” she asked. 

Luke nodded. “Pretty much. I think some of the stormtroopers stayed on Sidious' side when we were boarded, but apparently we're taking care of them.”

“What's your plan then? Or Vader's plan, I suppose I should say. You can't tell me he was anticipating any of this.”

“No,” Luke said, wincing. “I don't know when he planned to turn against the Emperor, but it certainly wasn't as soon as this. I don't know _what_ he has planned. He didn't tell me, and right now I wasn't going to ask. He needs to be resting, recovering, not thinking about strategy.”

Leia sighed. She wanted to shout at Luke for being so naive, but she had been trying to get him to see the truth ever since he had first spoken to her in the aftermath of throwing off the Dark Side, and none of it had gotten through to him. It certainly wouldn't now either. Didn't he find it suspicious that Vader hadn't told him anything? Didn't that _show_ he was just using him? 

“I've looked at the charts,” Luke continued. “The Shipwright's Trace finishes at Allanteen, so we'll have to come out there anyway to plot another jump. There's not much there except a waystation and a minor shipyard that doesn't get a lot of traffic. It's relatively out of the way. I might be able to persuade Vader to let you leave there...”

“That won't happen,” Leia said. It was a nice idea, but it just wouldn't. “I'm too valuable a prisoner for that.” There was no need to expand on precisely what she meant by that. 

“He's not going to force you to turn to the Dark Side,” Luke insisted. “He didn't for me – that was just my own stupidity.”

“He's still not going to let me go.”

Luke wasn't able to deny it. “Well,” he said instead, “in the meantime we can at least find your somewhere more comfortable than standing around on the bridge. Ezra's friends too.” 

Calling them friends after what they had told him about the Inquisitor was a bit much, but Leia was growing tired of arguing with her brother. Whether they were about to be sent to normal rooms or a cell in the brig didn't matter; she would just appreciate the chance to rest and to speak to Han, Rex and the others. It was inevitable that their conversation would be monitored, but at least they could make sure they were all on the same page with what was going on here. There wouldn't be any escape while they were still in hyperspace. 

“Commander Dogma. You'll have access to the ship's schematics right?” Luke asked.

The clone nodded. Leia had heard what he'd said to Rex – the whole bridge had. How callously he'd dismissed the suicides of his brothers. Despicable, but what else could you expect of a man who had to have been personally loyal to Darth Vader for over two decades. She was certain he had taken part of plenty of atrocities in his day. This issue with 'chips' though... Rex had mentioned something about it to her before, but had never really gotten into the details. Now she was curious. 

“The bridge-tower itself seems free of any fighting,” the clone said. “There are spare officers quarters – I'll have them taken there.”

“Thank you Dogma,” Luke replied. 

Half a dozen clones – and she was sure now that they _all_ must be clones – came forwards and ushered them towards the turbolift. Leia didn't resist. 

The eight of them were taken to a relatively small and sparse set of rooms and left there. The door slid shut behind them with a loud and final click of the electronic lock activating. Leia looked around at what was left of the Rebel Alliance's strike force. 

“So that's it then,” the tall Lasat growled, showing his teeth. “We're all kriffed.”

“There's no need for that kind of negativity,” Han said, not very convincingly. He flopped down on the narrow bunk at the side of the room, leaning back against the wall. 

“Oh yeah?” Zeb said. “How do you see us getting out of here then?”

“Luke'll pull through for us,” Han replied. 

“You mean Vader's son,” Hera said sharply. “The Imperial officer, apparently?” 

Chewie howled mournfully – whatever he said made Han wince. 

“The rest of you might still be released,” Leia told them. “Luke is simply... misguided at the moment, but he is still my brother. He will try, it's only his ability to convince Vader that I doubt. And Vader will never agree to let me go.”

Hera shook her head. “More likely they'll shove the rest of us out an airlock as soon as we arrive in-system. We should be thinking of some way out of here.”

“They haven't exactly left us well guarded,” Sabine added. “And we weren't even searched after we were captured.” She patted the bag at her side meaningfully. Of course, Leia realised. The thermal detonators. 

“That would get us some of the way,” she said. “But this ship is vast, and even if we could find a hanger with a shuttle to steal we wouldn't be able to leave until we drop out of hyperspace. It is a good idea though.” She wished she had a datapad, or a flimsi and something to write with. Another reason she didn't want to discuss this here was because of whoever might be listening in. Naturally they would be expecting an escape attempt at some point, but if they suggested it wouldn't be happening for some time then perhaps they could catch the Imps off-guard by enacting the plan sooner. 

“Chopper should be able to get us around,” Hera said, gesturing to their astromech droid, who beeped affirmative. If he was anything like Artoo, then he also would have some kind of slicing programming which would allow them to get through a shuttle's security. 

“In the meantime?” Rex asked. He had taken up position leaning against the wall near the door, arms folded over his broad chest. 

“We wait,” Leia told him. 

“Then we have time to talk,” Rex said. “We all _need_ to talk, about what happened on the bridge and about how Spectre was captured.”

“And about your clone brothers,” Leia said. “I wasn't mistaken, was I? That squad Luke brought with him; they're all clones.”

Rex nodded. “They... I thought they were all dead. I had no idea... Vader must have been _collecting_ them. That's the only explanation.”

“So they still have their chips,” Sabine said with disgust. “That one you were arguing with, Dogma, didn't deny it.”

“What do these 'chips' _do?_ ” Leia asked. “Why are they so significant?”

“They're these biomechanical devices, small, not more than a few centimeters long,” Rex explained. “The Kaminoans that made us implanted them in our heads, here.” He tapped the small white scar on his scalp. “They had codes embedded in them... contingencies designed by the Emperor. The kriffing long-necks _claimed_ they were there to stop us being the wrong kind of aggressive but it was no more than a _damn lie._ A lie my brother, Fives, died for so they could cover it all up!”

“Contingencies...” Leia said, feeling a kind of creeping horror. “A way to make you all loyal to him?”

“Not quite,” Rex replied. “Seems the orders were fairly specific, not general like that. There was only one we ever found out what it was though – Order 66. The order to kill the Jedi.”

Leia couldn't think of anything to say to that. Her father Bail had told her a little of the founding days of the Empire, stories to counteract the propaganda the Imperial curriculum would otherwise have taught her. She suspected that the deaths of the Jedi had been memories too painful for him to dip into. He had told her only that he had been there to see some of it, at the Temple on Coruscant that was now the center of the Imperial Palace, but that was all. From the grim expressions of Spectre crew though, they had heard this before. This wasn't the first time Rex had told this tale. 

“Like I told Dogma, I'd already dug deep enough to find out that Fives had been telling the truth,” Rex continued. “I went to General Skywalker with it but... anyway I left after that. Deserted, I suppose, although I had been betrayed by my superiors long before I ever betrayed them. The rest of the 501st though... they were on Coruscant. They marched on the Temple. And after that there weren't very many of them left, for one reason or another. I can't believe Dogma...” His voice caught in his throat.

“He's an Imperial,” Leia said, knowing she likely wasn't being very comforting but feeling the need to say _something._ “He's loyal to Vader, and so are the rest of them.”

“He's still their General,” Rex said, forcing the words out. “And that could have been me if things had been different.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Hera said with a gentleness Leia had never really seen from her before. 

“I understand them... and I _don't,_ ” Rex said. “But there is one thing – the fact that my brothers are here at all has to mean something. The Empire isn't sentimental, it doesn't care what happens to its soldiers when they aren't useful anymore. Vader would have no reason except one to have brought the remnants of the original 501st back together – because some part of him still feels he's their General too.”

“Don't make my brother's mistake,” Leia said, before anyone else could speak. “Don't fool yourself into thinking there's anything of Anakin Skywalker left.”

“Ahsoka has told me the same thing plenty of times Commander, you needn't worry about that,” Rex replied. “And even if there was I'm not sure how it'd be any help to us anyway. If we were looking for mercy loyal soldiers are one thing – a bunch of rebels like us are another.”

“If only Luke could see that,” Leia said, sighing. That was another factor in any escape attempt they might make – more than anything she wanted to bring Luke with them. There had to be some way to break him out of whatever conditioning and lies made up Vader's influence on him. Yet she couldn't begin to see how they could get him off the bridge or away from his clone guards. 

“I was thinking about that,” Rex said. “Well not your brother specifically but about what Vader's told him, about killing the Emperor. Have you considered all the tactical implications of this?”

“Are you accusing me of letting my feelings about Vader cloud my mind?” Leia said, spurred by sudden angry suspicion. 

“Your words not mine,” Rex pointed out. 

Captain Syndulla frowned. “We joined the Alliance to help people survive what the Empire was doing to them,” she said. “Their situation is bad enough already – you really think a civil war is going to improve things? Two tyrants, one against the other, neither side holding back?”

“But while Vader and the Emperor concentrate on each other they _won't_ be focusing on _us_ ,” Rex argued. 

“I see the old guy's point,” Han said. “Basic divide and conquer.” 

Chewbacca roared. “Yeah,” Han added. “And whoever's still alive at the end of it is going to be much less of a threat to us.”

“I'm not speaking about helping Vader in any way,” Rex said. “Just refocusing our attentions while he tears the Empire apart.”

Leia was forced to admit that he had a point even if she knew how much she hated to be proved wrong in any way. 

“We'll discuss this more later,” she said. “Anyone have anything else that they have a pressing need to talk about?”

No-one did, or perhaps they just didn't want to talk about it right _now_. Leia sank down onto the floor with her back against the wall and shut her eyes. She needed to think about their escape plan. And her arm was aching terribly. 

\----

Luke watched the patterns and lines of hyperspace stream past the forward ports of _Executor's_ bridge and tried not to think too hard about his father sitting in the hyperbaric chamber only a few floors away. If he did, he was afraid he might start crying and he... he couldn't do that here. And he needed to be here, or rather he didn't have anywhere else to go. He couldn't have gone with Leia. They wouldn't speak freely when he was around, not now. They didn't trust him anymore – and that hurt too but he understood their reasons. He'd passed on his father's instructions about the hyperdrive and that left him... here apparently. Staring out at nothing. 

Luke hadn't ever thought much about what things had been like between the Emperor and his father. Before Vrogas Vas, before learning the truth, he supposed he hadn't _really_ thought of Vader as a separate entity but as an extension of the Emperor's will. There had been no reason to think about what happened if Vader failed to carry out Sidious' orders or displeased him in some way. But he doubted he would have even suspected the truth. A truth his father barely seemed to regard as out of the ordinary in any way. 

The Emperor had tortured him. A lot. Because that was what it had been. With all the circuitry in his father's life support even the slightest amount of current flowing through him would disrupt that. He could have been killed a hundred times over. Luke remembered the halting breaths he had been taking before Kix got him to the hyperbaric chamber and had to close his eyes for a moment. It would have been like that every time, he was sure of it. 

And his father thought that was _normal. Natural._

He hadn't even been allowed medical treatment afterwards, from what it sounded like. And that was part of a pattern, one Luke was only just seeing. One which he was going to have to thank Kix for helping point out to him. Vader might claim he hadn't upgraded his cybernetics because he hadn't seen any need for it, but Luke now suspected Sidious had had a great deal to do with it as well. 

He needed to discuss this a lot more with Kix, but what if his father didn't have to be in that suit all the time? It was entirely possible that he did, that medically there wasn't anything to be done for him, but... but what if? 

Vader had accepted the idea of new prosthetics – after _far_ too much persuasion given that apparently his cybernetics were keeping him constantly in pain. Perhaps as part of that whole process they could look into getting him some _proper_ medical care for what would have to be the first time in _years_. 

That would come later though. Right now Luke needed to focus on _Executor_ and her crew, the people he was responsible for. As he had mentioned to Leia there were shipyards at Allanteen, but they weren't military – or hadn't been for many years. It was doubtful how much help they would be in repairing the self-inflicted damage to the hull, and it would be dangerous to stay too long in one place anyway, the more so when it was on such a high-traffic hyperspace lane as the Correllian Run. Most of that traffic wouldn't be dropping out of hyperspace in this particular system, but it would only take one Imperial ship...

His father would have thought of that though. He would just have to trust in his greater knowledge of Imperial forces and Imperial ways of doing things. 

The first test jump would be over soon; they were only traveling one system along the hyperspace lane. Their subsequent jumps would be further and longer, so that it would take them perhaps half a standard rotation to reach Allanteen. Surely there was something that could keep him occupied during that time? 

Nothing sprang to mind. 

\----

The adapted hyperdrive testing appeared to have gone well. Kix had finished trying to pour innumerable flasks of bacta solution down his throat and left for the medical bay. His thoughts were feeling more clear now, no longer weighted and heavy. It was time to make a call. 

The communications suite accessible from the hyperbaric chamber was state of the art. Vader activated it and then with a light touch of the Force called the manipulator arm which held his helmet to bring it down. Much of the minor, delicate circuitry within it was not functional, but he did not wish to show his face to any who had not already seen it. He entered the specific, private code which would connect him with Aphra. 

He did not have to wait long for it to be answered. Aphra had been continuing her work contacting potential Imperial allies for all this time, only reporting back when it became necessary. For security it had been important to keep their communications to a minimum – but now it was time to start calling in those sworn oaths she had procured for him. 

“Hey there boss,” Aphra said, as her small head-and-shoulders holo appeared above the holoprojector. She saluted – sloppy, but the gesture was appreciated. “How are things on the good ship _Executor?_ ”

“It is time, Aphra,” Vader said. Immediately the Doctor adopted a more serious attitude. 

“Isn't this... a little earlier than was in the plan?” she asked. 

“The Emperor has become aware of our treachery,” Vader told her. “ _Executor_ is en-route to the mustering point. Send out the call and meet us there.”

“Yes m'lord.” Aphra saluted again and terminated the call. She had not bothered to ask any unnecessary questions, and he liked that about her as well. She was more than capable, and required little guidance.

Once again, Vader considered whether he had been wise in choosing the system that he had for the staging ground for his war. He could not deny that a certain degree of non-military thinking had gone into it – but it was not without vital resources that they would need. _Executor_ was missing a large portion of its crew, and even reallocating some of those on the Star Destroyers that would be joining him would not entirely solve the problem. But if there was one thing Arkanis possessed, it was manpower. 

He could not yet tell what decision the commander of its Academy would make when presented with Vader's ultimatum, but Commandant Brendol Hux was known to be a man with his own ideas about the way things should be run. If those ideas had merit, then the prize of having free reign to implement them might be enough to tip the balance. If not... there would be other officers eager to step into his shoes. 

\----

**1 ABY – Imperial Shuttle _Nemesis_ , undisclosed location**

Aphra sat back in her seat, trying to quiet her suddenly racing heart. So. It was beginning. The culmination of all of her efforts over these past weeks, and what Vader himself had been doing. A war which would split the galaxy in half. Was she ready? Well, she would have to be. She wasn't going to disappoint Lord Vader, not for anything, even though she wasn't sure quite what role she would be playing going forward. 

She powered up the comms system. Each Imp officer she had spoken to had been given the details of this channel, and warned to wait for a signal to come through from it. She hadn't given them any idea about how long they might wait for that to happen, so at least they wouldn't get too much of a nasty surprise at being summoned early. The signal wasn't words, just a long series of numbers which would provide a set of galactic co-ordinates and a time when run through the descrambler program she had uploaded onto their personal datapads. It took a while to go through the whole list – time enough for her to get lost in her thoughts. 

Aphra had only managed to get a quarter of the way through Lord Vader's list of potential recruits if that. Most of them had been much as her Boss had judged them – more than willing to try and rise up the chain of command in a slightly unconventional manner. In most cases it did genuinely seem to be about principles. There were more Imps out there than she had ever suspected who found the Tarkin Doctrine distasteful or who didn't believe it was even effective. Even more who had been uneasy about the Death Star – and particularly they had been concerned about the fate of Alderaan. As one had told her, a hushed whisper just before she left; “Alderaan was a planet full of loyal Imperial citizens. Civilized people. If that could happen to them... are _any_ of us safe?”

The Empire really had shot itself in the foot with that one. Aphra didn't know what the on-world population of Alderaan had been, how many hundreds of thousands, millions, of people had died when the planet was torn apart, but even she didn't like to think about it too closely. She had long ago become inured to death, but there was killing and there was _killing._ Murder, on a grand scale. Genocide, if you wanted to go throwing that word about. 

But she didn't have to worry that she was on the side responsible for that, because Lord Vader had told her of his disapproval for what Tarkin had done. This was the new Empire they were going to build. An Empire that was still strong in all the ways that mattered, that she knew were needed to survive in a galaxy like this, but an Empire that used that strength responsibly. 

Of course, even on a carefully curated list like the one Vader had given her, there had been some surprises. Some people who just didn't play along. Triple-Zero and BeeTee had had fun with those. Aphra didn't worry that the mysterious assassinations of Imperial Captains would be linked together with the ISB agent who had arrived on ship around about the same time. She never used the same ident code twice. If anyone of higher rank _did_ notice a pattern, it would seem more like the ISB doing some general clearing out of potential traitors. 

Some of the lieutenants who stepped in to fill those Captaincies had been more amenable to reason anyway. That had been the case with their most recent visit, to the ISD- _Chimera._

The last code went through. Aphra shut the comms system down again, and started to input their next destination to the navicomputer. Arkanis was an interesting system for her Boss to choose for the mustering point, given that it had an Imperial Academy on it, but presumably Vader knew something she didn't about the potential loyalties of the commanders there. 

Hopefully when she got there she would find out what had happened to push things so far ahead of schedule. 

\----

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor,_ in hyperspace**

Imprisonment was not how the Fourth Sister had seen her day ending, but at least it wasn't too uncomfortable. Besides, she would take this option over death any day. She had long accepted that her life would be spent in service to the Sith but that didn't mean she wanted that to happen any sooner than it had to. It did mean that she was stuck with some of the more intolerable of her Siblings in Darkness though. 

“We could still escape,” someone suggested. Fourth peered around the bulk of Seventh Brother to see that it was Eighth Brother. She sneered at him, but he didn't notice and kept speaking. “It would be easy enough to break out of this prison – it wasn't built to hold people like us. Then we could steal a shuttle...”

“You're an idiot,” Fourth told him bluntly. “Vader's not dead – can't you _feel_ his presence? You really want to piss him off more? And that apprentice of his?” 

“You saw what things were like before they took us of the bridge,” Eighth said. “They'll have bigger problems to worry about and by the time they notice, we'll be gone.”

“Okay, another point,” she said. “We failed our mission. Big time. You think Lord Sidious will forgive that? There's plenty more where we came from. At least the new Apprentice didn't seem too angry about the whole thing. I'd rather take my chances with him.”

The Third Brother spoke up, smirking as he did so in a way that made her feel he was making the argument just for the sake of it. “And what about when Lord Vader recovers enough to overrule that? We can't expect mercy.”

“We can't expect mercy from Lord Sidious either,” she replied, baring her sharpened teeth at him. “I don't want to fight my way out of here to be rewarded with an execution.”

“I agree with Fourth,” the Eighth Sister said, weighing in. “Besides, I'm curious. Aren't any of you?”

“Curious about what?” Eighth Brother said. 

“About the new Apprentice,” Eighth Sister replied. “Where did Lord Vader dig him up from? You felt how strong he is.”

Fourth tried to conceal the slight shudder that went through her at the memory of that bright presence, a sun wreathed in flame, burning rage – and she wasn't the only one. A Sith manifest purely in anger, barely tempered by hate or pain or anything other than that one singular emotion. Then passing into eclipse, as the young man had pulled on some mask of fear and doubt – but one which the Jedi Padawan Organa had seemed to be fooled by. 

The two of them had spoken. Fourth hadn't been close enough to hear about what – and then they had been taken here. Still, she had felt something major happen in the Force not long after that, although she had no idea _what_. She suspected though that the new Apprentice would be less distracted by their Star Destroyers now than Eighth Brother might hope. 

“His Force presence and Vader's had some similarities,” Seventh Brother said, speaking for the first time. Fourth considered this. Perhaps – it wasn't her specialty. Seventh Brother was better at that kind of thing than most of them.

“What are you thinking?” she asked. 

“It cannot be a thing common to Lords of the Sith,” he continued. “Lord Sidious feels very different. We do not know who Lord Vader was before he joined Lord Sidious at the beginning of the Empire. Perhaps he has relatives.”

“Now _there's_ an idea,” Fourth said, “and not a very pleasant one. Shuts out a lot of opportunities for career advancement, if you ask me.”

“No-one was about to make you a Sith Lord any time soon Fourth,” Eighth Brother said, with a nasty laugh. “But what, they're still Sith. Sidious will kill one or both of them, and even if they win – which I doubt – one of them will kill the other eventually. It's called patience.”

“Yes, patience,” Fourth said. “A great virtue. Which is why we shouldn't make any sort of hasty decision about trying to escape this ship. Much better to wait and see what Lord Vader has planned for us – and for his Master.”

This it seemed at least most of her siblings could agree on.


	28. Part Four: Arkanis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an escape attempt is made, the Inquisitors have a choice to make, and Commandant Brendol Hux has a terrible, no-good, very-bad day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for references to torture.

**1 ABY – SSD- _Executor,_ hyperspace**

It hadn't taken long for Leia to realise that she could scout out their potential escape using the Force. It allowed her to feel the thousands of minds which roamed the ship all around them, map their patrol patterns, locate particular areas where they gathered more thickly and ones where they were thin on the ground. It wasn't as much help as she might have hoped. The more she looked, the less optimistic she became. _Executor_ might not have its full complement of stormtroopers but purely because of the location of their prison there were more than enough guards to go around. The bridge-tower was possibly the busiest place on the ship – but there had to be _some_ kind of opening they could slip through. 

The passage of time was hard to keep track of. The only real way to tell was by the minute shudders as they slipped in and out of hyperspace. At one point a stormtrooper – the standard issue kind, not a clone – delivered them some sleeping mats, thin blankets, and a collection of ration bars and water bottles. Then a little after that, someone in tech overalls turned up offering to have a look at her hand. Leia's first instinct was to refuse, not trusting that they wouldn't only make it worse somehow. But then a sharp stab of pain reminded her how much it kept bothering her – and how things seemed to be getting worse rather than better – and she gave in. 

“You didn't tell me you'd been hurt Princess,” Han whispered, as she held out her hand for the tech to look at. Leia didn't reply. It had been her business, not anyone else's... and telling the others wouldn't have made a difference anyway.

The tech stripped off the synth-skin covering and spent some time making delicate adjustments with a set of very small tools. It didn't restore all of the function, but at least most of the pain went away. The tech nodded to her brusquely, with a comment about letting a guard know if she experienced any side effects, then left again. 

“That happened during the battle with Vader, didn't it,” Rex said. It wasn't a question. 

“I had practically forgotten about it,” Leia lied. “With everything else that was going on.”

Rex snorted. He didn't believe her, but neither did he make any more of it. Leia assumed he understood her thought process. There had been no reason to assume they would get any kind of medical assistance from the Empire, so it would only have been a distraction. However it was good that it had been repaired a little; it might aid in their escape.

The tech's visit was enough to let them know they hadn't been forgotten about. They had to have been through the first few systems on the Shipwright's Trace by now, Leia thought, and she had seen no sign of Luke, or of the Inquisitor that had once been Ezra Bridger. Not that she had really been expecting to see them, after the choices they had made and the causes they had committed themselves to. 

She could feel Luke in the Force though, and Vader too. Vader was a thundercloud storm and a dark sun held beneath it, Luke was white light and fire burning bright. At times it seemed that she could almost hear an echo of Luke's thoughts and emotions, could hear him speaking to her along some kind of vague connection that she was half convinced she was imagining... but if it was real it was still weak. And if it hadn't been...? Luke wasn't going to be convinced of anything. Her brother was too kriffing stubborn for his own good. 

Leia wondered what destination Vader had in mind for them. She asked herself what she might do in his position, unpleasant as it was to even consider looking at things from his perspective. He wouldn't be able to overthrow the Emperor with a single ship, so presumably he had others, Captains whose loyalty he could trust. It was likely they would be going somewhere to meet with them, to assemble a fleet. And then... Military targets, obviously, but with so very many to choose from she could make no predictions. 

But those thoughts didn't matter as much as planning for their escape. If they were going to attempt this, they couldn't afford to wait much longer. At any time the troopers could come and move them from these temporary quarters to the ship's brig, and their chances there would be even worse. It had to be now – they would only get one opportunity. 

The rest of them – this little band that was all that was left of the rebels who had come to storm _Executor_ – knew they needed to be ready for Leia's signal at any point, at a moment's notice. Leia had decided on a time towards the small hours of the morning, deep into the ship's night shift when trooper minds were dull and sluggish. As they all settled down on the makeshift beds after another day of enforced boredom she lifted her hand to tug at her earlobe and said aloud; “Pleasant dreams everyone. I hope to dream of getting out of this place.”

Leia faked sleep for the next few hours, allowing herself to turn occasionally as a restless sleeper might. Then when it was time, when the minds outside grew weary, she slipped out from under the thin blanket and nudged Sabine's shoulder. The teenager nodded and got up, bringing her bag over with her to the door. She knelt down and started fixing the explosive charges carefully. Leia woke Han and Chewie and then the rest of Spectre, knowing that they wouldn't have much time now. Even if whoever was meant to be watching the security feeds wasn't the most attentive, they would have to have noticed something by now. 

Chewie helped Zeb to upturn the room's single real bed as well as the couch, making a rough barricade against the blast. Sabine nodded, giving a thumb's up, and everyone took cover. 

The noise was deafening. Clouds of black smoke filled the room, along with an acrid, oily scent. Leia tried not to gag on it and leapt up and over the couch towards the gaping hole that now existed where the door had once been. Outside two stormtroopers were lying sprawled on the floor, unmoving. One had a thick shard of durasteel shrapnel sticking out of his lower back. Stormtrooper armour with its ablative properties was designed for blaster fire, and was not particularly effective against the shockwave of an explosion. 

“Let's go,” she said sharply, as the others began to file out of the room. 

“You know where you're going?” Han asked her, raising an eyebrow. He stooped to grab one of the dead men's blasters, tossing the other to Rex. 

“Yes,” Leia replied, annoyed, although it would be more true to say that she simply had a direction and the ability to tell when someone was in their way. She led them off down the corridor, keeping herself wide open to the Force. 

They hadn't gone far when Leia hissed a halt, gesturing to a room off the main passageway. “They're coming,” she said. “Chopper, get us in there.” 

The droid burbled an agreement and extended his manipulator, rolling over to the access pad. Within moments the door was sliding open to let them in to what turned out to be a cupboard full of cleaning supplies. There was just enough space for everyone, although it was a near thing and far from comfortable. Moments after the door shut behind them the sound of running feet passed by, in significant numbers. Once they were gone, and Leia had felt out the path ahead and made sure it was clear, they continued on. 

This was a process that had to be repeated several times, and then Leia began to sense that they were running out of places to go. They had to go down, which meant the turbolifts or the emergency access ramps, but evidently whoever was directing the movements of the stormtroopers had an idea of what they were planning, because they kept being cut off. 

“They're boxing us in then?” Hera said, clearly having taken note of their frequent changes in direction. 

Leia tried not to curse. “There has to be some way out of here,” she said. “If we could just find some more weapons I could pick a spot weak enough for us to fight our way through...”

But that would be asking the Force for more than it had the ability to give. No, this was very much not going as she'd hoped. It had been a slim chance at the best of times but she had allowed herself to believe... 

Somewhere nearby, the ship's emergency broadcast system crackled to life. “Rebel prisoners,” a harsh, male voice said – not one she recognised. “You are trapped. There is nowhere for you to go. Lay down your arms – what little of them you have – and surrender so that your punishment will be negligible. Continue to resist and you will spend your deaths for nothing. I'm told we need Organa alive, but as for the rest of you scum...”

Leia tried her best not to give in to her frustration. The Imp was right, much as she hated to admit it, and it was hard not to feel some kind of rage at the unfairness of it, at how powerless she felt in this moment. Ahsoka had warned her that anything which could lead to anger was a danger – and she had seen how horrible Luke had felt in the Force when he had slipped and drawn on the Dark Side. She wanted nothing to do with it. She _would_ remain with the Light. She wouldn't make her brother's mistake. She breathed deeply, trying to calm herself. 

“I won't force any of you to continue,” she said. “Or to surrender, for that matter. Your choice is your own.”

Chewie roared. “He says if you want to fight he'll fight,” Han translated. “But so far as I see it, we gave it our best shot, we gambled... and we lost. I'm not naturally the self-sacrificing type.”

Normally Leia would have argued with him about that, but it was one thing to give your life for the cause, another to do so like this, which wouldn't help the Alliance in any way. She looked over at Spectre. 

Zeb bared his teeth. “Whatever the kriffing hells you want,” he said. “You're the damn Commander, and the one with the Force powers.”

Hera nodded. “If you can no longer see a way out of this, then I believe it.”

“What a waste of a good explosion,” Sabine muttered. 

“Fine.” Leia raised her voice and addressed whoever was watching. “We surrender.”

\----

**1 ABY – SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis, Arkanis system, Outer Rim**

Several standard rotations after leaving Fondor, the Super Star Destroyer _Executor_ emerged from hyperspace above the Outer Rim planet of Arkanis. The trip itself had been almost uneventful. General Veers had mopped up the last of the resistance on board, and their prisoners had been quiet enough after the abject failure of their escape attempt. Vader had enough experience of his daughter's character by now to have anticipated her defiance of the odds. But spirit, determination and the Light Side were not by themselves enough – much as the Rebel Alliance might believe otherwise. Sacrificing two stormtroopers had been more than worth it to try and prove that to her. 

For his own part Vader had spent the time well, finishing the repairs to his cybernetics and helmet with the assistance of Kix and Artoo, meditating with the Dark Side and occasionally reaching for the flame of the Light, avoiding a bacta bath, and considering plans for the new limbs his son wanted him to build. He had surprised himself with how rapidly those ideas flowed. Once they established a base at Arkanis Academy it would not take long to use the planet's more expansive facilities and resources to create what he had in mind. That, however, could only come once the planet was his. 

_Executor_ was the first of his ships to arrive, but it was not alone in space. The planet had a guardian in the form of a single Star Destroyer placed in orbit above it, but it was clear that as of yet Sidious had not spread the word of his defection widely, for its guns remained silent and still. Vader rose from his chamber and headed for the bridge where he knew his son had been watching their drop out of hyperspace. Luke had made a request of him when _Executor_ had reached Allanteen and the crew had been waiting for Vader to inform them of their next destination; he had wanted to release their Rebel prisoners. His daughter aside, Vader might have considered it had circumstances been different, but as it was her friends were useful in preventing her from doing anything.. foolish. Leia was family, but that did not change her politics – and in addition, Vader would be making a request of her soon. 

This was the first time he would be on the bridge of _Executor_ since he had been injured. As he swept out of the turbolift the bridge crew came swiftly to attention. Captain Piett saluted – although with Ozzel reportedly dead Vader was of a mind to give him a promotion once the rest of the fleet arrived. _Admiral_ Piett seemed apt. The man was more than capable of growing to fit the role – and he had slain his predecessor with his own hands. Luke was standing beside the officer, and sent a soft pulse of warmth and welcome to him in the Force. Vader acknowledge it, returned it with his own affection. He knew his son was worried that he was not yet recovered enough to be doing this, but there was no need for Luke's concern. If negotiations with Commandant Hux and the governor of Arkanis turned sour and a more violent solution was required... then Vader had fought whilst far more injured than this. 

“Lord Vader,” Piett said as he approached. “You have orders sir?”

“Bring us closer to the planet,” Vader said. “Patrol pattern Dorn. And hail that Star Destroyer.”

Piett nodded sharply, and began to direct the bridge crew. In the space that stretched out before their hail could reasonably expect to be answered, Luke spoke through their bond. 

_Father, this might be far from the best time, but soon you're going to_ have _to tell me what your plans are here._

 _All shall be revealed soon,_ Vader replied in the same fashion. _You and I shall travel to the planet's surface to ensure its loyalty to our cause. After that, we shall speak._

Luke nodded; not happy but satisfied. In truth Vader intended their conversation to be only part of a greater strategy meeting, one that would require the presence of the Captains who should be arriving in the near future. He trusted Aphra's assessment of them well enough but until he had a chance to test their loyalties for himself he would not underestimate the possibility of there being a spy among their number. They were not the only beings who required that testing either. He was well aware of the dozen Inquisitors in _Executor's_ brig. Potentially powerful weapons, if he could be sure they were not the kind that would turn on the hand that wielded them. They had already bowed to his son's show of strength, so he hoped they would follow the Twelfth Brother's example. In fact it might be better to assess them _first._ He had not forgotten the _other_ training facility on Arkanis.

The Star Destroyer was answering their hail. Vader nodded to Piett, who brought the Captain's image up onscreen. Whatever the woman on the other side of the connection had expected to see, _he_ clearly was not it. Her dark skin took on an ashen pallour and her words stuck in her throat. Vader waited as she swallowed hard. 

“Lord Vader, welcome to Arkanis,” she said eventually. “I am Captain Palka of the ISD- _Overlord._ I can only apologise that we weren't informed to expect your arrival.”

“You were not meant to know of it Captain,” Vader told her. “However, mine will not be the only ship arriving in this system. There will be a number of Star Destroyers joining us here – at present you do not have the clearance to know why. Make no attempt to contact them. Remain in your position in orbit over Arkanis.”

He was not blind to her clear curiosity and the questions crowding the forefront of her mind. Still she was an Imperial officer; she merely nodded her acknowledgment of his orders. “Is there anything else I should know, my lord?” she asked, which was as bold as she was willing to be. 

“I shall be taking a shuttle down to the planet's surface in half a rotation,” Vader said. “Inform the Governor of this. I shall expect he and Commandant Hux to be awaiting my arrival.”

“It shall be done sir.” 

Vader terminated the connection with a brief touch of the Force. 

“Other ships, milord?” Captain Piett asked. 

“Allies, Captain,” Vader said. “Luke, with me. We have business in the brig. Have the Twelfth Brother meet us there.”

Luke nodded and tapped his wrist-comm, following Vader to the turbo-lift. Vader could feel his curiosity, but these were Sith matters and he saw no need to discuss them where those who were not Force-sensitive might overhear. 

“This has to be about the Inquisitors,” Luke said, as they descended through the ship. “Am I right?”

“You are correct,” Vader replied. “Astute as always, my son.”

“What do you plan to do with them?” Luke asked. “They tried to kill you so... are you thinking of revenge?” 

Vader probed his son's thoughts. Was Luke considering mercy, or did he seek to continue what he had started with the Grand Inquisitor? No, there was no anger there, no hate. He seemed to have forgiven the Inquisitors their actions. He was far too lenient – the tactical advantage of keeping them alive did not even figure in his son's thinking, and that was the _only_ true reason to spare them. That leniency was why Luke would always need Vader – _someone_ had to protect the boy from the consequences of being himself. 

“If they serve us, they shall live,” he said. 

“They said they didn't want to be involved,” Luke said. “Or at least one of them did. Because this was the way of the Sith, and between you and Sidious.” There was half a question in his words. 

“It is traditional,” Vader allowed. “The Master owes the Apprentice knowledge and to stand in a position of strength. The Apprentice owes loyalty. If this contract is broken, one must kill the other. I am entirely within my rights as a Sith – Sidious has denied me vital knowledge, and together we will prove he no longer has the greater strength either.”

“How do the Inquisitors fit into all this?” 

“They are not truly Sith. They merely wield the Dark Side. The promise of ascension is given to them as motivation, but it is a hollow one.”

“That's not fair,” Luke said, surprising him. Fair did not come into it. 

“If they cannot see the obvious truth, they do not deserve to know it,” he said. 

Luke might have said more, but they were nearing their destination. As requested, the Twelfth Brother was waiting for them – and without his pets. They would simply complicate matters. Vader wanted his presence here for two purposes. Both to witness the fates of his brethren, and to illustrate that there was a place for them should they make the correct choice. 

The brig was well-guarded, but naturally those guards remained well out of their way. Vader strode along the corridor to the group cell where the Inquisitors were being held. Evidently his approach had been noticed in the Force, since when the door was opened it revealed a group of twelve standing to attention in two rows. As he entered the room they moved as one, sinking down into the Sith genuflection. They might be attempting to control their fear but even behind their shields it was strong enough that he could almost taste it. Behind him, the Twelfth Brother's fear also spiked, but as he gave no outward reaction it mattered little.

“You have a choice,” he told the Inquisitors. “Submit or die.”

“A decision we have had ample time to make Master,” one said – a human female. “You are strong and so we will serve.”

He had expected more resistance. He had expected at least one to choose the latter option. He had failed the test of strength against them, been defeated by Force Lightning. By rights they might not have been willing to go against Sidious – but perhaps it was rather Luke's strength that had won their respect. And it had been clear to everyone on _Executor's_ bridge where Luke's own loyalties lay. During his meditations it had struck Vader that he would have been wise to worry that seeing his rebel friends again might have drawn Luke away from the correct path – but the possibility had never even entered his mind. Much had changed in the weeks on Vjun. 

“Swear your loyalty to me,” he told the gathered Inquisitors. They already knew the words – an old Sith oath Sidious had unearthed. Part of the wealth of knowledge he possessed and which for the most part he had never shared with Vader. Perhaps had never had any intention of sharing. When he was dead, that knowledge would be wrested from its original sources; writings and holocrons. Even if Luke did not want it, it would be very unwise to let it go entirely to waste. 

Spoken aloud, the ancient Sith tongue sent shivers through the Dark Side. It acknowledged what had been promised, but it was not in its nature to enforce anything. If a Sith Lord could not revenge themselves on traitors, then they were not worthy of an oath in the first place. 

At his side, Luke shifted uncomfortably. He had yet to come to terms with his use of the Dark Side, although his reasons for that were unclear. It made no sense to Vader, but he had resigned himself to an incomplete understanding of his son, at least for now. He would acclimatise in time, and common sense would prevail over the instincts Kenobi had taught him. 

“Very well,” Vader said, once the oath-taking was complete. “We will test your loyalty shortly. A shuttle is being prepared to take us to the surface of Arkanis. You will pick four of your number to accompany me.” Any more and there might be a temptation to run. 

“Your will shall be done,” the same Inquisitor replied. “Thank you for your mercy, Lord Vader.”

\----

**1 ABY – Imperial Academy, Arkanis, Arkanis sector, Outer Rim**

Brendol Hux was concerned. He wouldn't go so far as to say that concern had turned into outright worry, at least not yet, but that might easily change as the situation developed. Up until now he'd had things very much to his liking at the Academy. The planetary governor had no particular military acumen and left all matters of that kind to him. Captain Palka was a recent transfer in-system since her predecessor had been required in some campaign half-way across the galaxy, and it had meant a promotion for her. A promotion to guard-duty, more or less, and Hux could tell she thought little of the work. It was a posting designed to encourage softness to develop. No rebels dared attack Arkanis. She was not positioned to notice anything amiss in what he was doing. 

But now someone _had_ been sent to Arkanis, he could only assume to check up on him. He supposed it had been inevitable, but he had expected a mere ISB agent easy enough to bribe or distract, not... Darth kriffing Vader. Vader and a massive ship like nothing he had ever seen before – even though it looked to have seen battle of some kind en-route, by the oddly regular carbon-scoring on its hull. 

In some ways it made sense. Hux was not only Commandant of the Imperial Academy, after all, but also one of the overseers of Project Harvester as well. Therefore Vader's presence here was likely two-fold. First, he had been sent to monitor the program which selected those individuals who would be sent on to Mustafar to join the Inquisitorius, and secondly the Emperor wanted someone completely trustworthy to make sure his little project was proceeding as planned. Any interest in the standard officer training program would be negligible – and it was only on that side of things that Hux had been doing anything that might invite censure. 

Or more than censure, if Vader found out about his special cadets. But there was no reason for him to do so. It was nothing to do with the Sith or the Force. 

Vader would be arriving soon. Governor Zorr had been running around like a picken with its head cut off trying to prepare ever since Palka had sent notice that both he and Hux would be expected to meet with the Sith. Normally Hux wouldn't care in the slightest about that, but he didn't want to look bad by association. This inspection should proceed as smoothly as possible so as to get Vader out of his hair as quickly as he could. He sent one of his junior officers with a stormtrooper squad to hurry Zorr along. They were due at the landing pad shortly. 

His own preparations had been made in the span of a quarter-hour immediately after he had received Palka's message; a testament to the discipline and order of his soldiers. The Governor had no excuse for tardiness. 

Brendol Hux strode out to the landing pad, ignoring the light rain that pattered off his uniform cap and shoulders. He had been living on Arkanis for years; all his attire had been treated with water-resistent chemicals. It the weather happened to worsen then he would have someone bring him a cover-field, but for the moment that was unnecessary and would have been frankly foppish. Surrender to the elements was much like any other kind of weakness – fit only to be despised. The honour guard of troopers and cadets he had ordered arranged were all assembled in orderly rows at parade rest, ready to snap to attention the moment Vader disembarked. Hux scanned the area, finding it all to his liking. 

And here came Governor Zorr and his own retinue. Good – and just in time. The dark grey shape of an shuttle was even now beginning its descent through the clouds, its wings beginning to fold up towards its sides. It settled gently onto the landing pad as Zorr drew level with Hux and came to a stop, panting slightly for breath. Zorr was an old man, sixtyish, bearded, balding, and with little else to say about him or indeed his character. Whether he was a good governor to the civilians of this planet was irrelevant to Brendol – he assumed he must be at least competent by the lack of rebel sympathies here. That was sufficient, along with the fact that he didn't interfere with anything Hux did. 

The shuttle's ramp hissed open. Vader appeared – Hux was no stranger to the wide range of COMPNOR's Vader-related propaganda, so recognised him instantly – and strode down the length of the ramp. He was followed by a young man also clad in black, and then four figures whom Hux immediately identified as Inquisitors. That number seemed excessive – had they nothing better to do with their time? 

Vader paused momentarily, watching as the ranks of Arkanis' finest snapped to attention, then strode towards Brendol and Zorr. “Governor, Commandant,” he said, greeting them both. 

“Welcome to Arkanis, Lord Vader,” Zorr said, attempting to smile. It looked more a rictus to Hux. Still, the man was technically more highly ranked than he was. It was only proper for him to take the lead in this. 

“I have business with you both,” Vader said, in a way Brendol couldn't help but find ominous, even if he had been expecting it. “I will speak with Commandant Hux first.”

“As you wish milord,” Zorr said, bowing. He looked frankly relieved. 

“Please, join me inside the Academy Lord Vader,” Hux said, keeping a strong leash on any anxiety. Such emotions were beneath him. Vader simply nodded, so Hux turned sharply and led the way. It was hardly comfortable having something as deadly as a Sith Lord at his back. He tried not to grind his teeth together. He might have something to hide, but he should act as though he had nothing to fear. 

Hux brought Vader and his retinue to his office. The space was large enough for them all without any particular awkwardness. He offered the Sith a seat, but Vader ignored it. Hux went to stand by the window instead of taking his own seat behind his desk. It offered an excellent view down to the parade ground and training yards, but he did not focus on any of that now. Had this been any other man, a normal Imperial officer, he might have made a point of showing off the view, allowing it to lead into a prepared speech about the work he was doing here at Arkanis – but such things would hold no weight with a Sith. 

“I am at your disposal, Lord Vader,” he said. 

“Have you received any word from the Emperor in the last few days?” Vader asked him. Brendol blinked, trying not to show any surprise. 

“No, my lord,” he said. “Your visit came as a surprise to us all.”

Vader nodded. “Many have spoken highly of your work here on Arkanis,” he said. “And of your ideas for improving the training of the Stormtrooper Corps.”

“Ideas which do not serve the Empire's purposes at present,” Hux said without missing a beat. He hadn't been expecting to be asked about this. Had he been wrong? Had someone found out about what he was doing here with his select cadets? 

“The Empire's circumstances may yet change,” Vader said. “Present your case.”

Everything felt off balance. The conversation kept turning in ways he hadn't, couldn't have, anticipated. There was nothing he hated more than being surprised. Yet if he was being given another opportunity to make the changes which he truly felt would improve the Imperial military, then he would take hold of it with both hands. “As you may be aware Lord Vader,” he began, “at the start of my career I was a junior officer in the Grand Army of the Republic. At that time the professionalism, abilities and dedication of the clones impressed me greatly. Since the founding of the Empire and the restructuring of our infantry to use standard humans, I have been consistently disappointed by my ability to train them to as great a potential. I know it is not a fault with my training – Arkanis has some of the highest figures of all the Academies save Mandalore.”

“You believe the Empire should return to using clone troopers?” Vader asked. 

Hux shook his head. “Clones have their disadvantages as well,” he said. “Weaknesses to disease, illness, manufactured bio-weapons. A tendency to all think alike, which limits adaptability. No, my proposal was simply in _how_ we train our troopers. We don't begin early enough. The clone army was raised from birth to be soldiers, and we need to start doing the same. Only then can we achieve the excellence that our Empire deserves.”

“Child soldiers?” This came from the young man in Vader's retinue. There was an expression of disgust on his face. 

Vader's head tilted. It was impossible to read anything behind the mask, but Hux fancied he was curious. “Why was your proposal previously dismissed?” he asked. 

“Economics,” Brendol replied. It was still galling now. “Perfection costs too much, I'm told.”

Something seemed to be passing between Vader and the blonde youth, some form of silent communication. Who was this boy anyway? Not an Inquisitor – he didn't wear their uniform. Or any other uniform, for that matter. He didn't seem much enamored of Hux's vision, but he had had it dismissed by too many other Imperial officers to let it matter to him. That was why he had taken things into his own hands in the first place. 

A sudden headache bloomed behind Brendol's eyes. He winced minutely, and brought a hand to his forehead briefly before remembering himself. Stress most likely. He pushed the pain away and tried to concentrate. Something didn't feel quite right here – but he couldn't put his finger on exactly what. 

“Are you loyal to the Emperor, Commandant Hux?” Vader asked him. “Or to the Empire itself.”

“The Emperor _is_ the Empire,” Hux replied. This felt like a trap, but he couldn't sense more than the vague edges of it. There was nothing to tell him which way to step to avoid falling into it. 

“You are hiding something Commandant,” Vader said. Brendol's heart sank. “It will go better for you if you reveal it to me now.”

“I don't know what you mean, Lord Vader,” Hux said, showing nothing on his face. “The only secrets anyone is keeping here are those permitted by the Emperor – Project Harvester, Unity, Legacy...” 

“I doubt that very much Commandant,” Vader said. “Inquisitors, take this man prisoner and prepare him for interrogation.”

Hux's first instinct was to fight. He didn't last long. Inquisitors were trained in hand-to-hand combat as well as the usage of their lightsabers. There were four of them to one of him, and they could use the Force. He was forced to his knees, heavy durasteel cuffs locking his hands behind his back – and none of them made any attempt to be gentle. Hux spat blood from a punch to his jaw, wanting to curse. Inwardly his mind was already working, trying to find a way our of the situation. If they gave him just a little time before the interrogation he might be able to get word to his cadets to stage a rescue... they were loyal enough to spend their lives to do it. But what then? He didn't fool himself that his previous usefulness to the Emperor would mean anything. He would have to run – he would have lost everything. 

And if the cadets failed? If he was recaptured? If no message reached them? 

Hux knew he wouldn't be able to hold out for long, not when Force-users were involved. Their ability to rip thoughts from a sentient's mind was just one of the things that made them so useful. They would do the same to him, they would find out about his cadets, and then he would be executed. They wouldn't understand that he had been doing this for the Empire, not for himself. It had been to make a point, to show that his methods _worked_. But they would just see loyalties stolen.

Running was better than death. He would happily have given his life up in service to the Empire, but his death here would help no-one. If he was given the chance, he would take it.

\----

Vader watched the four Inquisitors drag Commandant Hux away, more concerned for the moment with the emotions boiling inside his son. Luke had been angry ever since the Commandant had begun to speak about his ideas for the Stormtrooper Corps. He _did_ understand why. Luke had objected to the relatively young age at which the Inquisitors were recruited, even though that practice still allowed them their childhood beforehand. What Hux had been proposing had been far more extreme than that, and it was too close to the malevolent child-stealing of the Jedi for Vader to have been happy with it. 

Yet the clones... they had all been so young, but that had been a fact very easy to forget. Doubt, an unfamiliar sensation, insinuated itself into the back of his mind. That had been war, and growing as they did what kind of childhood would they have had on Kamino? But... 

He did not have the time to properly consider that issue, not now. The Commandant was a problem that needed to be dealt with. His initial plan was no longer viable, but _Executor_ still needed to take its fill of Arkanis' troops. He had not lied – it was clear that Hux was indeed keeping secrets of some kind. If those secrets were scandalous enough to discredit the man, then there was still hope that removing him would not cause any problems. It was curious; he had tried to probe the Commandant's mind, knowing that guilt often brought thoughts of wrong-doing to the surface where a light touch would reveal them. There had been nothing there. Nothing except a smooth curtain of Arkanis rain, too similar to Force-shielding for comfort. 

Hux had been a child when the Jedi Order still existed. If he had that kind of potential he would have been brought to the Temple, would have been a padawan or even a knight during the Clone Wars. It was possible that he was simply a minor Force-talent. There were many of those spread across the galaxy. But if so, who would have shown him a technique such as that? And why – for it would not have been done unless there was something of real significance to hide. 

And what was Project Legacy, for that matter? Vader was familiar with the other two programs, but not that one. Was there something else going on here on Arkanis? Something that the Emperor had set into motion? 

Much was unclear here, and Vader did not trust it. Perhaps the Force itself had been guiding him when he made the decision to come to Arkanis. Anything that Sidious had a hand in, he wanted to know about. Perhaps it could be turned to their own uses, or perhaps it would simply be one less weapon in the hand of their enemy. 

“I never thought I would be glad about one of the Empire's decisions,” Luke said. “But they could have been doing that... making an army of child soldiers... and someone decided not to. Even if it was because they thought they couldn't afford it, I'm still thankful for that.”

“He will be permanently removed from power here,” Vader reassured him. 

“Is it really necessary to torture him though,” Luke said. “I know he's not... that he's our enemy. But even someone who thinks like that doesn't deserve...”

“You may wish to give him a swift death,” Vader said. “But if we do not know what secrets he has been keeping, there may be great danger.”

“You're going to do to him what you did to Leia,” Luke said, in a small voice. 

Vader paused. He couldn't deny it. The memory stabbed at him, grief and pain and guilt... but he still had to do what must be done. Besides, Leia was his daughter. Hux meant nothing. And even if the man had been taught to shield he was not strong in the Force- it would not require such extreme methods to pry the truth out of him. He could afford to be more gentle. 

“I can't stop you, can I?” Luke asked. 

“No, son,” Vader told him. “I will do what must be done for our safety.”


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Palpatine always has a backup, and a group of younglings survive close contact with Darth Vader.

**1 ABY – Arkanis, Arkanis system, Outer Rim**

The Inquisitors had left Commandant Hux alone in the room, strapped down to an interrogation table. They had also stripped him down to his underclothes, even though Vader had not requested this. It was unnecessary. Pain would not be the primary means by which he would get the information he needed. Drugs would put the man in a stupor, weaken his mental defences enough to break past the shielding to whatever he was trying to hide. Under normal circumstances a droid would administer the medication, but when Vader had thought about ordering one to come here the idea had left him... unsettled. He would do the task himself. It was not complicated. 

The Commandant raised his head when Vader descended the steps into the room. “I have done nothing wrong,” he said – defiance, not a plea. Not all of the parts of his mind were locked away. Emotions, intentions... some little of this leaked out. “Everything I have done has been in service of the Empire.”

Vader did not bother replying to this. It was immaterial what Hux thought of his own actions; the only arbiter of them would be Vader himself. He found the vein in the crook of the arm, bulging just beneath the skin, and slid the needle home. Blood spun momentarily in the clear fluid suspension, then disappeared along with the serum as it was slowly injected. It did not take long to take effect. The Commandant's pupils dilated open and sweat beaded on his skin. Vader dropped the empty vial and reached out with the Force. He sensed impressions, flashes of sensation. A burning feverish heat. The bright light of the cell as blinding as looking directly into the sun. 

That much was irrelevant. Vader went further, deeper, searching. The man's shields lay just under the surface, the steady rain now become a monsoon, a torrential heated downpour, with flashes of lightning bursting across the sky lighting up the underside of dark clouds. It was a world in turmoil. Vader drew on the Dark Side. It came sluggishly, sensing perhaps that after what Luke had said to him he had lost some of his stomach for this kind of interrogation. Still, even without his usual iron certainty, he was stronger by far than Commandant Hux. 

The rain broke apart, parting like a curtain and taking this sodden ghost-world with it. He stepped through rent shields and into the mind beneath. Here there were memories, knowledge, all of the secrets that he had come here to take. There was organisation to them, or there had been. The drugs had changed that, thrown everything into disarray. Vader flicked from image to image, seeing fragments of memory, hearing scraps of conversation. He did not know precisely what he was looking for, only that he would recognise it when he came across it. 

There. Something... a familiar voice. He concentrated, and the memory unfolded around him.

_Cold rain, a downpour more severe than anything he had felt on Arkanis except in the very worst of her autumnal storms. Nothing he would have ever chosen to be out in – except that here he had not been given a choice. He served at his Emperor's pleasure and if that meant a trip half-way across the galaxy then he was happy to obey. Hux jogged from the shelter of his shuttle to the doors of the building on the other side of the landing pad. He was soaking by the time he reached them._

_There was an alien waiting for him just inside. The species was familiar to him only from their previous holo-communications. He had never met one in person before, and was surprised and disgusted by its proportions, which looked far worse full-sized than they ever had as a mere projection. It towered over him, head bobbing slightly on the end of that long neck, balanced in an ungainly fashion on slender hooves and legs with one too many joints._

_“Welcome Commandant,” it told him, passing a hand over its belly and bowing slightly – a motion that might have been graceful in something smaller. Hux could only think about how delicate those bones might be, how easily they would snap when pitted against human strength. “Please, come this way.”_

_Dripping on the floor, Hux followed the creature. As far as he could see, this place seemed deserted. The clean white corridors, empty and echoing, put him on edge. Aliens like this couldn't be trusted. He was sure the Emperor was only doing so because their services could not be reliably obtained anywhere else._

_They reached their destination before long. Hux was shown into a large room – and immediately came to attention._

_“Ah, Commandant,” the Emperor said. “I am glad to see you arrived here safely.”_

_“I am at your disposal, your excellency,” Hux replied._

_“Yet you wonder why I have called you here,” the Emperor said. His voice was soft, gentle, but it did not let him forget exactly who it belonged to. He gestured to a large cylinder which was resting on the floor a little behind him, and Hux craned his head for a better look at it. It was a little like a bacta tank, but smaller. The fluid was a little clouded, but then his brain made sense of what his eyes were showing him._

_“It was... successful then,” Hux said. He still didn't know why his presence was required here. He didn't need to see the thing; in fact it would have been better that he know as little about it as possible after he had submitted the initial genetic sample. Now though he was wondering if he had come here to be killed._

_The Emperor laughed softly. “You are still of some use to me Commandant.” Hux flinched a little. He had heard rumours that the Emperor could read the thoughts straight from your head but he had never expected to receive personal confirmation of that fact._

_“My lord, when will it be... born?” Hux asked, failing to think of a better term for it._

_“Very soon,” the Emperor said. “It will require a caretaker.”_

_Now Hux understood. “The Harvester orphans are usually a little older than this, my lord,” he said. “I am unsure if...”_

_“I am sure you will make any necessary accommodations, Commandant,” the Emperor said. His quiet voice was no longer so pleasant as it had been. “If this child survives in an... unproblematic manner, it may be merely the first of many. With the vagaries of the future in mind, it is always prudent to have spares.”_

_Hux nodded, saluting again. He could tell that the conversation was already over. The Emperor made a gesture, and two Imperial guards all in red appeared as if from nowhere. Repulsors on the tank were activated, and the two guards began to manoeuvre it towards the exit. Hux fell into step next to them, glancing at the thing behind the glass. This was a degree of responsibility he was not entirely comfortable with – but he would rise to the occasion, of course. He had never had any particular ambition to have a child of his own, finding the idea of caring for a baby somewhat unpleasant... but he could program a droid to do most of the work, at least until it was older and capable of carrying on a basic conversation._

_Not that it was really_ his _child. His genes had only supplemented those of the Emperor, to prevent some kind of rejection of the growing zygote by the universe itself. He did not pretend to understand such things as the Force. Leave that to the Inquisitors. All that mattered for the foreseeable future was the safety of the Emperor's heir._

Vader drew back from the memory with a sharpness that made the Commandant cry out in pain. Part of him was shocked at what he had seen, but his surprise was not as great as he might have thought. He knew Sidious. A plan like this was entirely like him – and more so to keep it from Vader. No doubt it was not the only one of the Emperor's machinations that he was not privy to. 

Was this child simply an heir? A clone of Sidious – or close enough. Or was it something more. His old Master had fed him Sith knowledge in the smallest of trickles, keeping much back, but Vader had learned some things on his own no matter that he would have been punished if this had ever been found out. He was aware of one Dark ability that allowed a mind – a self – to be transferred from an old body into a new one. That was one Sith method to prolong life – not that it would have saved Padmé even if he had known of it at the time. It could not be done from outside, but only by the Force-user themselves. 

Was this the function of the clone? A way for Palpatine to flee his own death? If so then it was truly a boon to have found this out now, while there was still something that could be done about it. 

Vader pulled himself out of the Commandant's mind, then hesitated. He did not know how long ago that vision had been. How old was the clone child now? Was he here on Arkanis, and if so, exactly where? It would be unwise of him to act in haste. 

Commandant Hux was panting, staring up at the ceiling. He spoke – barely a whisper. Vader had to strain to make the words out. “You didn't know...” Hux said. “About the child.” An ugly smile warped his face. “That's interesting. Maybe he's... planning on replacing you.”

If he had hoped to strike to wound, or at least needle at him, the Commandant was to be disappointed. He knew nothing of the true state of affairs. “Where is the child now?” Vader asked, reaching with the Force at the same time. 

“Kriff off,” the Commandant said, but it was too late. The question had made him think of the boy, and Vader plucked the images from his mind with ease. A youngling somewhere just shy of two years old – red-blond hair, blue-green eyes, face splattered with freckles. Vader had never seen his former Master as a young man, but the child certainly bore some of the Commandant's looks. A suite of rooms. A droid. 

He had what he needed. He summoned his lightsaber into his hand, intending to end the Commandant's life but... was he so sure this was the only secret hidden in the man's mind? His search had been brief, and had ended the moment he discovered this particular problem. It would be wiser to wait, to take the time to scour every corner before he killed the man. It might be wiser to do so now but... he needed to see this child, assess the threat. 

Vader turned and swept out of the room.

\----

Luke hadn't really had anywhere to be during the... call it what it was, the torture. He didn't want to be there, or anywhere near enough that he would be able to feel what was going on. He felt too uneasy in the presence of the Inquisitors to stand around outside the cell with them – he couldn't even imagine making small talk with them in the way he could with Ezra. It would have been nice if Ezra could have come down to the planet with them, but the hssiss refused to leave his side for very long. Generally obedient as the predators might be, bringing them to Arkanis would have given the wrong impression. So in the end Luke remained in Commandant Hux's office. Waiting. 

Somewhere high above him in space, Imperial Star Destroyers were gathering. The first of them had reverted from hyperspace as their shuttle had descended towards Arkanis, and more were sure to follow. As far as Luke knew, Captain Piett had been ordered to contact them to take what amounted to a roll call and let them know further instructions from Vader would follow. The thought of a fleet up there was unnerving. The thought that they were all on his side, or maybe that he was on theirs, wasn't exactly comforting either. Leia had asked him what he thought he was doing. If he really appreciated what the price of this path might be. And Luke _had_ thought about it. Hard. He really did believe it would be worth it to see the Emperor dead, but after that? 

None of these Imperials were any different to the enemies he had been fighting since he joined the Alliance. They wanted the same things; order, which meant control and power and trampling on innocent people; and peace, which just meant no-one was allowed to complain about the fact that what they were doing wasn't fair _or_ right. They were against the Emperor because they thought Vader was the better bet to come out on top – or so he had to assume. Not because they thought what the Empire did was wrong. 

And what about Vader himself, what about Luke's father? How much had he really changed, if he even had at all? He wanted them to rule the galaxy together, 'as father and son', and as much as Luke had said that wasn't going to happen it didn't appear to have sunk in any. Like Leia had said, Vader as Emperor wouldn't be any better than Sidious – or not _much_ better. Luke refused to believe his father was capable – on his _own_ , and that was _important_ – of the atrocities that Sidious was. Without the Emperor around to give him orders...

Or was that just wishful thinking? 

There was no-one Luke could trust to speak to about this. He could talk to Leia, yes, but their conversation would be monitored and even then he already knew her position. She would try and argue him out of this course of action, not advise him about what he should do once the first step was over. 

He should have gone back to see her again. He felt guilty about that. There had been plenty of time during their voyage to Arkanis and she had deserved to know the details about where they were headed but... he had been afraid to face her. Afraid that she was right and he was wrong... or that he was right but she would convince him otherwise. Afraid of Han, looking at him like he was a monster again, as he had on the bridge. 

Luke was torn out of his thoughts by a sudden shock of surprise. It had come from his bond with his father. Bolting upright, he reached out along that thread of the Force, trying to see what might have caused the rapid spike of emotion and if it meant some kind of danger. Vader was still in the cell block, and deep in the mind of the Commandant. Luke shied away, not wanting to see what his father was doing. But that meant it had been something in the man's head. One of the secrets his father had been talking about. 

Luke made a decision. He left the office and headed towards Vader's presence in the Force. No-one he passed in the corridors tried to stop him. They had seen him arrive with Vader. By the time he actually reached the prison block, his father was leaving it. Vader stopped as soon as he saw Luke. 

“Son,” he said. “Is something the matter?”

“You found something,” Luke said. “I felt it.”

Vader nodded. “A scheme of the Emperor's. He has commissioned a clone – the child is being kept here on Arkanis.”

“A clone...?” Luke didn't know what he had been expecting – not that though. “Why?”

“Whatever his intentions, the youngling presents a clear danger.”

“Wait...” Luke had a horrible feeling about what his father was suggesting. “You're not suggesting... you're not going to hurt him are you?”

Vader stood looking at him. His mind was closed off – Luke couldn't get a read on it. “We shall see,” he said, finally. “The Inquisitors shall remain here.” 

Luke followed him as he strode away, his thoughts whirling. A clone... how old was he? What was he like? Surely he couldn't be anything like Sidious, not yet; it sounded like he was still a kid. Not someone evil, malicious. Okay, they might have the same genes, but blaming someone for that would be just like blaming someone for who their parents were. How could his father think about _killing_ a child! He would have to stop it. Stand quite literally in the way, if that was what was needed. 

They were heading into a part of the Academy that looked different from the rest. The officers and groups of cadets they had occasionally been passing were nowhere to be seen. Ahead of them there was a large set of blast doors, red lock-down light shining on the control panel. Vader took a code cylinder from his belt and swiped it past the panel, flashing the light to green. The doors hissed open. 

There was an Inquisitor staring at them. A Rodian, with four parallel scars over her face that looked like claw-marks. Then she realised who was standing in front of her and dropped to one knee in that same position that Luke had seen from the other Inquisitors, and from Ezra. 

“Lord Vader,” the Rodian said. “How may I serve?”

There were questions in her mind. Luke could feel them hovering like sand-flies. He wasn't surprised that she didn't ask them though. He had become used to the fear and terror that his father induced in other sentients – although he never felt very good about it. 

“What do you know of Project Legacy?” Vader demanded. 

“Nothing, Lord Vader,” the Rodian said promptly. “But I could take you to First Sister...”

“No.” Vader reached out, thrusting an image through the Force. “Take us _here._ ”

“Oh, the crèche!” The Rodian nodded. “Of course lord.”

A crèche? For one child? Luke wondered at that – it seemed odd. But his father had assured him that the Inquisitorius only took young teens for training, not anyone younger – and that had been truth. Or at least, truth as far as he knew it. Vader had been lied to before. 

Luke's fears and suspicions were confirmed when the Inquisitor led them to a room walled on two sides with transparisteel – a room full of children. They were of many species, and varied ages, but all seemed below what would be standard schooling age in the Empire. There was a droid of some kind watching over them, not a model he recognised. It had matt black plating, and four separate multi-jointed arms, the manipulators of which had been wrapped in some kind of soft padding. Two dark photoreceptors snapped up to watch their approach, and then the droid strode towards the door in long, jerky steps. 

“You are not authorised to be here,” it said, in flat tones with a slightly feminine lilt to them. 

“Malfunctioning piece of scrap,” the Rodian hissed. “This is Darth Vader!”

“Affirmative,” the droid agreed blandly. “He is not authorised to be here.”

His father's anger was seething just under the surface, but to Luke's relief he seemed unwilling to let it out so near the children. It seemed that none of them had noticed their arrival yet – they were too absorbed in their toys, and there must be some soundproofing effect from the transparisteel to cut out the heavy rasp of the respirator. 

“What is your designation,” Vader asked, quietly menacing. 

“I am DDM-38,” the droid said. “The young ones call me DeeDee. You must leave now.”

“Are all these younglings part of Project Legacy?” Vader demanded. 

The droid looked surprised by that, as much as its blank faceplate could allow. “Legacy is classified. How do you know of it?”

“Lord Vader,” the Rodian Inquisitor was looking worried. “I don't know about Legacy, but as far as I'm aware these younglings were all gathered as part of Harvester.”

“I was not aware there were so many Force-sensitive orphans in this part of the galaxy,” Vader said. 

“I suppose they are orphans _now,_ ” the Rodian said, with a not very humorous laugh. Luke's heart sank. 

“What do you mean by that?” his father snarled, his hand coming up in a motion Luke knew all too well. The Inquisitor pawed at her throat, at the Force grip constricting it. 

“Nothing, Lord Vader,” she managed to gasp out. “Just... you know how it works... in the Outer Rim.”

Vader dropped her. “Do I?” he said. “I will deal with _you_ later.” He turned back to DeeDee. “If you do not let me past, you will be rendered into scrap.”

“I will not allow you to harm my charges,” the droid said, with that same calmness. It did not seem to be bothered by seven foot of Sith Lord threatening it. 

Luke felt his father's patience snap – it was an almost physical sensation, a painful twang along their bond. DeeDee went flying backwards, hitting the other wall of the crèche hard enough to crumple the metal. A few sparks flew from its casing. The effect on the children was immediate and predictable. Some screamed, some burst out crying, and some scattered around the room looking for a place to hide. Vader paused in the doorway, radiating something that Luke thought seemed rather like embarrassment. Then he took a step back. 

“Luke,” he said. “Can you...”

Luke sighed. 

The Force inside the room was a mess of fear, of rampant emotion without limits or control. Luke winced the moment he stepped inside, feeling how the Dark Side gathered everywhere, drawn by it and making it worse. He could see how if left unchecked it would create a kind of feedback loop, and then they would never get the children calm. He took a deep breath in and released it slowly, trying to block out the overload of sensory information. Trying to quiet his mind. 

The Force here felt much as it had on Vjun, on _Executor_. He was beginning to forget what places that were not strong in the Dark Side even felt like. But it didn't stop him reaching out for the Light. He wanted that stillness, the sensation of something vast, waiting. He thought of the vast blue bowl of the Tatooine sky, touching the sands in a single straight unbroken line at the horizon. The stillness of a mid-day where both suns were at the apex of their arcs, where the heat beat down against the desert like a hammer that flattened even the thought of movement, of action. Was this the same kind of Light the Jedi holocron had spoken of? He doubted it, but it seemed to work for him. The imagery, the way the Force rose up inside him as though drawn through a filter made from his very bones, felt far easier and far more natural than what he had been trying to do on Vrogas Vas. 

_Calm,_ he projected. _Stillness. There is nothing to fear here._

Gradually, the crying stopped. Small bodies relaxed. Minds went quiet. In the sudden silence, Luke could hear the whirring of the fallen droid trying to get itself back on its feet. It turned its head to look at him, tilting it to one side with birdlike curiosity. 

“I do not know if you are authorised to be here,” it said, modulating its voice to something more gentle than it had been – more for the sake of the children than for him, he suspected. “Identify yourself.”

“Luke Skywalker,” he told it. “And no, I don't think I am authorised. But is that really the most important thing right now? Like you said, you have to protect your charges. If you talk to me, I'll help you do that.”

DeeDee whirred thoughtfully, processing this. “You also know about Legacy?” it asked him. Luke nodded. “Brendol Junior is here.” One arm rose and pointed. Luke turned his head to see a small ginger boy half-hidden behind a toppled chair. He looked somewhere between one and two years old – he didn't know enough about young children to make a better guess. Old enough to walk, at least. 

“Hi,” he said softly, kneeling down and holding a hand out. “You can come here. It's safe.” He made sure to project that feeling too, something softer and more comforting than what he had used before. That had been a little suffocating, now he thought about it – not enough to do any harm, but probably not the most pleasant sensation either. 

The boy approached him. He was in a plain black bodysuit; some kind of fleece material with the Imperial cog embroidered on the front. Now that he was paying attention, Luke saw that it was a manner of dress common to all the children in here. He was also holding some kind of stuffed toy close to his chest, something fat and fluffy. 

“Hey,” Luke smiled. What had his father even been worried about? This was a little boy, not a weapon or a threat. 

“What's going on?” one of the other children asked him, looking towards the door nervously. “Has the monster gone away?”

“He's not a monster,” Luke said, keeping his voice gentle. “That's my father.” The children shrank back from him a little, eyes wide. 

“I don't believe you,” another said. “You don't look anything like it. It was really tall and black all over and it was growling, slow like this.” She made a noise that was a decent impression of the respirator. 

“That's because my father has to wear a mask and a suit, to keep him alive,” Luke explained. “He hasn't come here to hurt any of you. He was angry for a moment, and that's why he threw DeeDee around, but he's not angry anymore.”

“He needs to learn to control his anger,” the same kid said. She was a twi'lek, and probably the oldest of them here. “You'll never be strong if you can't control your anger and use it properly.” It sounded like she was parroting a lesson. 

They... of course they were already teaching them about the Dark Side. He shouldn't have been surprised. Shouldn't have let it hit him like a sudden stab to the heart. After all, hadn't the whole point about the _Jedi_ doing just this been to bring up its children in the Light? His father hadn't known about this, he believed that much. Luke would have sensed the deception. Vader wasn't that good at lying to him. 

“Usually he can,” Luke told them. “And he's controlling it now. We've just come to see how you're all getting on here.”

“Fine,” the twi'lek said, echoed by a round of other high-pitched voices echoing the sentiment. 

_Luke._ It was his father's voice, sent over the bond. _The clone._

Oh. Yeah. Luke didn't know exactly what Vader might be looking for, but he reached out towards the boy through the Force anyway. He sensed... nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary, at least. Just a child. There was probably a way to tell if he was Force-sensitive, but Luke didn't know it. The Dark Side didn't seem any stronger around him than around any of the other children. 

_He seems... safe,_ he sent back. _Harmless._

He felt Vader's disbelief. _Are you certain, son?_

_Yes._ Luke replied. _For the moment at least, he's no threat to us._

“Are you talking to someone else?” a little togruta boy asked, frowning. 

“I should probably get someone to help DeeDee,” Luke said, avoiding the question. He wouldn't have thought they would be sensitive enough yet to pick up on the connection he had with his father but... clearly he had been wrong. 

“Yeah, DeeDee's hurt!” one of the children said. There was some concerned-sounding burbling from the group. 

“Right, but there'll be someone around who knows how to fix them,” Luke said, standing up. “Don't worry. DeeDee will be good as new before you know it. In the meantime you should all stay in here where it's safe.”

Tiny faces looked up at him and nodded. Luke beat a hasty retreat, fighting the part of him that wanted to stay here with them. They were just so adorable, and... he wanted to help them. He felt that there was something he ought to be doing here, something important, but he couldn't vocalise to himself exactly what that might be. 

Outside he found his father holding the Rodian Inquisitor up against the wall by the throat, well out of sight of the crèche room. Luke blinked, startled. Vader looked over at him, then gave the woman a little shake. 

“We have questions for you,” he growled. 

“Lord Vader if I have done anything to anger you...” Vader shook her again, shutting her up. Luke sighed. He didn't like this... but he knew what his father wanted to ask about. Clearly Sidious hadn't been telling him the full truth about the Inquisitorius all these years. Luke was sure neither of them were going to like the answers the Rodian would give, but they needed to hear them all the same. 

“Tell me,” Vader said, “how _does_ it work in the Outer Rim?”

“You're Darth Vader!” the Rodian gasped. “How do you not know this?”

“Speak!” 

As well as she was able to, the Inquisitor nodded assent. “It's... the testing. These backwaters... half of them the Empire doesn't even own in anything but name. Some of them don't even _have_ schools, and even those that do don't always make their students take the aptitudes properly. If we just left it up to the locals we'd miss _hundreds_ of potential Inquisitors. So... we go out hunting.”

“That does not explain the younglings,” Vader said, not relaxing his hold. There was space enough for the Rodian to breath, but only just. She wasn't shielding well – Luke could practically taste her panic. 

“We can't wait around for them to be old enough!” the Inquisitor protested. “There's no way we could keep track of them for that long. These people... they don't respect the Empire or its laws. They try to hide from the Inquisitorius all the time!”

“So you take them,” Vader growled. 

The Rodian nodded. “And... if it looks like the witnesses are going to be a problem,” she said, “we get rid of them.”

“This practise will end,” Vader said, every word dropping like a lead weight. “Now.”

Luke relaxed a little. He had hoped his father would see this for the abomination it was, but he was still glad that faith had been rewarded. He would take what little victories he could get, given that Vader still wanted the Empire as a whole to go on existing. Luke wondered how he couldn't see that all these horrors were just symptoms of the deeper problem that was the Galactic Empire. Was it so easy for his father to lay it all at the feet of Sidious? The system itself was broken; a new Emperor wouldn't fix it. 

“But... the protocol was approved by Lord Sidious,” the Rodian protested. “Besides how else...”

Vader's fist tightened. “I do not care what the Emperor thinks. It _will_ stop.” He let go. The Inquisitor slid down the wall, swallowing hard and massaging her throat. “I am declaring the end of my Apprenticeship. Soon there will be a new Master of the Sith.”

The Rodian's eyes widened in surprise. “I... I understand,” she said. “I'll speak to First Sister immediately. I'm sure we can suspend operations until... uh. Until matters are resolved.”

His father seemed to be satisfied by this – if not entirely happy. He turned, cape swirling around him, and marched away. 

_Come_ , he said to Luke. _We have other matters to attend to._


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Aphra returns, Piett has a lot of meetings to go to, and Luke seeks some advice from Alkamar again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Work at the moment isn't leaving me much time to write, so I might have to slow down the rate at which I'm updating. It really depends, but I wanted to give you all a head's-up before hand just in case.

**1 ABY – Arkanis, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

“I think I need to speak to Alkamar,” Luke said, once they were out of range of the Inquisitor's sight and hearing. “I've... got questions that need answering.” That feeling he'd had in the crèche... it had been the Force. He felt sure of it. It was trying to tell him something, but he needed guidance to help him figure it out – and even though he was sure his father would be more than willing to help, the Dark Side wasn't the kind of guidance he was looking for. 

Vader paused, his hand going to his belt in a half-unconscious gesture. “I have not thought of her much of late,” he confessed – although Luke thought perhaps his words did not entirely have the ring of truth. “Are you so certain you need her now? You have already felt the power of the Dark Side. You should be focusing on that, for the battle that is to come.”

“No. It needs to be her,” Luke said firmly. “It's something about being here... about Arkanis.” That was half of the truth. The other half was that he needed her advice about his mistake. He had to know where he had gone wrong on the bridge, why he had jumped straight into using the Dark Side. He _should_ have been able to use his emotions to draw on a part of the Force that wasn't tainted ... but he hadn't. Which could only mean he needed more practise at doing so, until it felt natural to him, like second nature. And that meant he needed Alkamar to keep teaching him. 

“Very well.” His father reached into a pouch and drew out the holocron. He hesitated for a moment, before dropping it into Luke's outstretched hands. “Do not use it here,” he said. “It may be noticed by the Inquisitors.”

“I can wait until we're back on board _Executor_ ,” Luke replied. “We're heading back up soon, aren't we? For this meeting.”

“Correct. But I must speak to the Governor first. And ensure no other surprises are concealed in the Commandant's head.” 

Luke winced. “Are you sure that's... necessary?” he asked. 

“That child will not be the only scheme that Sidious has hidden,” Vader replied. “We cannot take the chance that Commandant Hux might have been made aware of others. A partial victory over my former Master could be worse for the galaxy than no victory at all.”

Luke bowed his head. The urge to protest some more crowded against his tongue, but he said nothing. His father was right and he couldn't find any way to deny it. 

“I know this is unpleasant, my son,” Vader said, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Think on it no longer. Leave these matters to me.”

He couldn't – because just turning his back on horrible things and pretending they didn't exist was as good as allowing them to happen, as permitting them. But his father was so sincere in what he'd said, was really trying his best to respect Luke's wishes... And although his experience so far had been that he could get Vader to change his mind about a lot of things, when he saw some kind of danger towards Luke all of that went out the window. It was impossible to argue with his father when he thought Luke's life was at stake – and that was his argument here. 

“Will you be long?” he asked. 

Vader shook his head. “Once it is done, he will have a swift death.” That was probably meant to be reassuring. It wasn't. What would they have done in the rebellion Luke wondered, if they had captured an Imp officer and found he knew important things about the Emperor? A scenario of that kind had never come up during his time there. He had never thought about it. But would it have been so different? He had never asked Leia or anyone else in the Alliance what they did with prisoners – and he should have, he was now realising. 

“I'll meet you back at the shuttle then,” Luke said. He might not be able to open the holocron until they were back in space, but he could at least take the time to think about what he was going to ask her. 

And he would try not to think what his father would be doing in the meantime.

\----

**1 ABY – Imperial Shuttle _Nemesis_ , Arkanis system, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

Aphra came out of hyperspace further out than she would have usually, choosing caution over her typical headstrong instincts. She had burned the shuttle's hyperdrive hot to get here as quickly as possible, not even making an attempt to come via Vjun to switch back to her own _Ark Angel_. A background of stars greeted her, the system's sun burning far in the distance, Arkanis itself not much bigger than the palm of her hand. She ran a long-range sensor sweep, and the screen lit up with signals. Ion trails from sublight engines – that particular output characteristic of Imperial Star Destroyers... and something else. Something much bigger. Something deep in her heart thrilled with anticipation. She already knew what that had to be. Lord Vader's new ship. _Executor_. 

She wanted to see it – see it properly. She set _Nemesis_ on a course planet-ward, making sure she was broadcasting another of her manufactured ISB codes, and tapped her fingers impatiently against the control panel as Arkanis began to swell in the viewscreen. Her eyes swept the sky, looking for the blue burn of engines or the shine of sunlight off durasteel. Judging from her scan she wasn't exactly the first one here, so with all those ships out there she should be able to see at least one of them... 

It took longer than she would have liked to catch her first glimpse of something, and even then it was a while longer before she was close enough to make out anything more. And then she was being hailed. Annoyed, Aphra slapped her hand down on the comm, activating it. 

“This is Captain Piett of _Executor_ ,” a familiar, clipped voice said. "Identify yourself." Aphra smiled. 

“Hello Captain Piett,” she replied, not bothering to be respectful. “It's an old friend come calling. Remember me? It's only been what, a month or so?” 

There was nothing but silence on the channel for a moment. Then a quiet sigh. “Darth Vader's agent, am I correct? I might have expected your arrival.”

“Yeah,” Aphra said. “You might. Now where's your shiny new ship, Captain? I've got a shuttle that needs to land on her.”

\----

**1 ABY – SSD- _Executor,_ over Arkanis, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

Vader's agent had come aboard. Piett hadn't greeted her personally but had sent an ensign to bring her up to one of the many spare rooms in the bridge-tower until Lord Vader and his son returned. He had his own issues to deal with in the meantime. He had called an officer's meeting whilst Vader was away. It might have been appropriate to do this sooner, during the hyperspace journey to Arkanis, but he could be honest enough with himself to admit that he wasn't exactly looking forward to it. 

Over the past few hours he had been engaged in watching Star Destroyers dropping out of hyperspace one after another. He'd kept count – there were almost twenty of them now, not counting _Executor_ herself or the one which had already been patrolling the Arkanis system when they arrived. It was a significant fleet, when brought together like this. But not so significant when laid against the full might of the Imperial Navy. There existed other battlegroups of similar size – if none which could also count amongst their number a ship of such power and magnitude as _Executor_. He had spoken to their Captains as they arrived – short conversations to establish their identities and let them know that Vader would have further plans for them in due course. Now he needed to have a similar conversation with _Executor's_ officers. 

Piett didn't want this to seem too formal, and so he had arranged it to take place in the officer's mess. Of course some of the junior officers had to remain on duty on the bridge merely to keep an eye on things, but he would speak to them separately later. Most accompanied him down the tower. 

General Veers was already waiting for him, accompanied by his own subordinates. There weren't as many of them as there should have been, but the reasons behind that were two-fold; partly because some of them hadn't been due to arrive on _Executor_ for another week yet, and partly because there had been casualties fighting off the boarding parties – both defections and fatalities. Even Veers himself had one arm in a sling, although that hadn't stopped him taking advantage of their location to stuff his face with a tray full of military rations – the perks of rank meant it was some manner of reconstituted meat and bean strew, rather than protein paste. His stormtroopers had not been so bold.

“Captain,” Veers said, saluting with his spoon as Piett sat down opposite him. “Lieutenants.” 

The other officers milled around uncertainly for a moment before Piett sighed and signaled for them to sit down as well. He appreciated that rank made this awkward for them, but at present he simply did not care. 

“I must congratulate you on your recent success, General,” Piett said, folding his hands together in front of him on the table. 

“Thank you Captain,” Veers replied, pushing his tray away from him and straightening up. “But that's not what you've brought us here to talk about, is it.”

“No,” Piett said. “I appreciate that for everyone else around this table, recent events have come as something of a surprise.”

There were a number of curt, controlled nods. The fingers of Veers' uninjured hand tapped lightly against the surface of the mess table. “Not for you though Captain,” the General said. 

“No,” Piett replied. “As some of you might have heard me state on the bridge, I had already been approached by one of Lord Vader's agents.”

“And agreed to turn traitor, in your own words,” Veers said. Piett's eyes narrowed. Veers hadn't been there, which meant someone else had told him that. He could see the shape of things. The lieutenants and ensigns serving under him wouldn't dare question Piett's motivations, but technically Veers was of equal rank to him. He would have been approached as the only person who had the right to ask for the truth. 

“A traitor to the _Emperor, not_ to the Empire,” Piett countered. “And a choice you yourself have also made, General Veers.”

Veers shrugged. “I'm a soldier with a simple mind,” he said. “As far as I see it, I wasn't about to turn against my commanding officer on the say-so of some jumped up Major invading the ship I'm meant to protect – and that was all they had commanding the boarding party, if you can believe it. If the consequence of that choice turned out to be treason, then so be it. A decision made on the battlefield is never a clear one, but you've still got to live with it afterwards.”

“And do the rest of your officers feel the same way?”

“Well? Do you, soldiers?” Veers said. 

“It's Darth Vader sir,” one of the infantry officers said. This seemed to be about all the explanation, or indeed reason, any of them needed. Nodding and murmurs of agreement came from the rest of the infantrymen. 

“What about you, Captain?” Veers asked him. “How do _your_ officers feel about what you've dragged them into?” 

Piett tried not to show any of the doubts he was feeling. The original plan had been to speak to each officer individually so as to get a feel for where their loyalties would lie when this happened. But events had taken over from him. Veers' hard features contained the ghost of a smirk while he waited for the answer. 

“If anyone does have any doubts or any questions,” he said, addressing the group as a whole. “Now would be the time to voice them. Now may be the only time it is safe for your to do so – no punishment will be issued for what you say here. That will not be the case in future. Although I am sure none of you would be foolish enough to consider betraying us to the Emperor. Not only are all of us tarred by the same brush of treachery as Lord Vader, but I'm sure you are all aware of Vader's abilities and what he does to those he is... displeased with.”

Lieutenant Avin's hand crept upwards. “I just... don't understand _why._ Why is Lord Vader doing this? He's... Darth Vader.” The boy looked hopelessly lost. Piett could understand why. Vader and loyalty were probably synonymous in most people's minds at this point, after how much time COMPNOR had spent hammering it in. 

“That illustrates how necessary this is,” Piett said. “Vader would never turn on the Emperor unless he believed utterly that it was what's best for the Empire as a whole. The Emperor's methods; using the Tarkin Doctrine, the Death Star... the Empire is moving away from what it has always been meant to be. It's driving people into the arms of the rebels.”

“I... guess so sir,” the lieutenant said. He still looked uncertain. 

“Too late to back out now flyboys,” Veers said. “You have to play the sabbac hand you've been dealt.” 

“If anyone wants to speak about this in more detail,” Piett said, relenting a little. “Come and see me later.” He suspected there would be a lot of junior officers knocking on his door in the near future, wanting reassurance that they hadn't been dragged unwillingly into something that would get them killed or worse. Unfortunately Piett couldn't promise them that. All he could give them was the potential for a regime that was better than the one they had right now – and whether that would be enough for them he didn't know. 

As Veers had said, there was no going back now, not for any of them. 

\----

On their return to _Executor_ Luke managed to extricate himself from the rest of the group following his father back to the bridge and went off to find a suitably unoccupied room somewhere. The holocron was a heavy weight in his pocket. He had realised on the shuttle journey back that it still had the same Force protections on it as before – that it required both the Light and the Dark used together to open it. He hadn't quite found a way out of that dilemma yet. He could have asked Vader to help him, but he had other business to attend to. He could have asked Ezra, but his friend still wasn't meant to know about the holocron yet, according to his father. The only option seemed to be to try opening it himself, which would mean using the Dark Side again, and he really didn't want to. Not simply because of Alkamar's warnings about it or what Ben Kenobi had told him - he didn't like how it had made him feel. Strong, yes, powerful, yes, but it had been either so subtle or at the other extreme simply so overwhelming that he hadn't even realised what he had done until the Dark had tried to influence him into doing something that ran completely against his instincts. It had clouded his morals, clouded right and wrong. If he used it again... would he still know afterwards that he should be giving it up?

Perhaps he could do what Alkamar had started to teach him, and use positive emotions. She had spoken of righteous anger, love, joy, used as a shield and insulation against the darkness. She had mentioned that her people had tried to purify Bogan – the Dark Side – of what it had been corrupted into. Not that Luke held any illusions about doing that himself. But maybe he could do the first thing. Maybe. If he was careful, if he let go of the Dark at the _moment_ he felt himself thinking differently... 

He might be making a massive mistake – for the second time – but he didn't sense any kind of warning from the Force that he was going down a dangerous road. 

He set the holocron down on the table in the centre of the room and sat down, staring at it. Slowly he took deep breaths in and out, calming his mind, and let his eyes flicker closed. He knew the feel of the Light now, his own particular brand of it, the Light of Tatooine's suns and sky. That came easily enough, draping over him and filling the room with its thick heavy presence. Still. Waiting. 

And now the harder part. Calling the Light was imagery, quietness; emotions didn't come into it. Luke barely remembered exactly how he had been feeling when he saw his father on the bridge, wounded, in danger. It had been love, yes, of course, but it had been desperation too. And maybe that was why he had called on the Dark Side – because it had felt so urgent, and the Dark was always so eager to offer itself up to be used. But that wasn't what he needed now. 

Luke thought about his father. He thought about his sister. About the complicated mess of emotions they both set tumbling and tangling in his heart. Then, very cautiously, he reached out to the Force looking for... something. 

The Dark Side was there, if he wanted it. It was all around him, around the room, kept out by the sphere of Light he had already called to him. He reached for it with a lure of love tinged with a little sorrow, wondering if it would latch on. Tendrils of darkness lapped towards him, but slowly, sluggishly, as though confused. It wasn't that desperate eagerness that had always greeted him before. So... 

Like throwing a rope to fall around a bantha's neck, Luke lashed towards the Dark with his will, vaguely aware of the way his body had instinctively made a similar gesture with one hand. He grasped hold of it and dragged it forwards into the zone of Light all around him. He didn't quite understand what happened next. It felt like a lot of things happening at once, but at the end of it he was left with a tiny, thin thread of the Dark Side flowing towards him, pacified. 

Was it affecting him now, as it had before? Luke thought about it. He didn't feel like he had last time. He felt the same as he had before he sat down. It seemed to have worked. Anyway, he only needed this power for one purpose. He turned towards the holocron, reached out for those little pressure points within the Force. He pictured it in his mind; left hand directing the Light, right hand the Dark. The holocron opened up, metal parting, crystal glowing. 

The figure of Alkamar appeared in the air. 

“ _Very_ interesting,” she said, looking him up and down. “What _have_ you been getting up to, student?”

“So much!” Luke said, the words almost feeling torn out of him. And then the whole kriffing story was coming out; his Force-sent visions, racing to _Executor,_ Vader's injuries, calling on the Dark Side... It was so much easier to tell Alkamar, a stranger thousands of years apart from this mess he was in, who he was sure wasn't going to judge him. She was as impartial as it was possible to be. 

“There has been much to distress you of late,” Alkamar told him, once he had finished. “I _am_ sorry to hear of all your troubles.”

“Thank you for listening,” Luke said. “I suppose what I really wanted was just... to ask for your advice. And your expertise. Why... why was it that I fell? Why did I use the Dark Side like that? I knew better!”

“My student, I cannot read your mind or heart,” Alkamar said gently. “All I can say is that Bogan as it has been corrupted will always seem the easiest road to power. This was not the case, once. But Bogan has been fed with pain, grown fat on suffering. It is a great deep well of stolen strength. It is what it has been influenced to be – and it has always been in the interests of the Sith and their ilk for their part of the Force to be as powerful as they can make it. Yet it is treacherous – as you now know. That ease is a trap. Bogan knows what it is expected to be, and what it expects its users to be. And it has a taste now for what it has been fed.”

“I know,” Luke said, shivering. “I felt it... what it wanted me to do. Does _everyone_ who uses it feel that? Inquisitors? Sith? How can they stand it?”

“I do not know enough to say,” Alkamar told him. “If so I expect they are not so consciously aware of it as you were in that moment – not after it has been part of them for a long time. Either that, or part of their training is in learning to control those impulses.”

Luke sighed. He hated the idea that his father might feel those impulses all the time – and that Ezra might as well. He could almost understand the old Jedi point of view. He hadn't felt like the same person any more. But... changing that, getting either of them to turn away from the Dark Side, wasn't something that would be happening any time soon. 

“I did something different to get the holocron open,” he said. “I was trying to do what you'd said, with positive emotions. I think it worked but... am I doing it right?”

“Given how little instruction you have had on this subject, more than right,” Alkamar replied. “I am most impressed. You and your father have both taken to this surprisingly well.”

“Wait, my father?” Luke asked. “He's been doing... what has he been doing?”

“Turning away from the path of the Sith, it seems,” Alkamar said, with a slight smile. “He continues to use the poisoned Dark, but he has also started reaching out with emotions other than hate or anger. The Light he summons is not that of the Jedi, which is all to the good. But it is a Light all the same – I suppose such stark contrasts are all he has known.”

“He never said...”

“Your father is in the stage of doubting the Sith, and that is not an easy thing to do. Give him time, and patience.”

“Of course I will,” Luke said. “I'm just... glad to hear that he's managed to do something like that!”

Alkamar smiled. “Now,” she said, “you also wanted my expertise. As always, I am willing to teach you.”

“I need to be better at doing... this,” Luke said, gesturing to the holocron itself to make his point. “I don't want to use the Dark Side again by mistake, just because it's as easy as you said.”

“I will do my best,” Alkamar said. “But first I must say again... Light and Dark are only fragments of the Force, not the Force entire. The names we Arkanii had for what we used, our own separate parts of the Unified Force, we called the Path of the Moons and the Path of the Suns. I could begin to teach you more about these, but I cannot say how easy it will be. The paths of Light and Dark are already carved into your mind – you understand them. It is culture and nurture, not so easily set aside.”

“I'm willing to try,” Luke told her.

“It may help that we are here,” Alkamar said. “Yes, I feel it. We are on Arkanis, are we not? Or at least, in the skies above it.”

Luke nodded. “But why...?”

“It may have been many long centuries, but our places still remember us. The feel of us. The Force takes its shape from sentience, remember.”

“There might be a problem with that,” Luke said. “I don't know that much about it but from what I do understand, the Empire has been training Inquisitors on Arkanis for years now.” At her inquiring look he explained further; “Inquisitors are Dark-siders. Not Sith, exactly... or not _Lords_ of the Sith at least. I don't quite get all the ins and outs of it.”

“Even so, I doubt it would be enough to fully erase our millennia occupying this system,” Alkamar replied. “However, such subtlety might breed confusion, and that is the last thing a young student like you needs. Perhaps it might be better to go to one of our worlds where no Sith or Jedi have laid down roots.”

“Where?” Luke asked.

“Perhaps Tatooine,” Alkamar suggested. “I suspect the Jedi did not remain there long after their invasion – I doubt they would have wished to be reminded of what they did there. But it is your decision. We have already started upon the basics of my teaching, and can continue them for some while before such a pilgrimage might be necessary.”

“I... don't know if I would be able to,” Luke said. “I'm meant to be staying with my father, and we have a war to fight now.”

“A war against this Sith Lord.” Alkamar nodded. “I understand. Then let us concentrate on what I _can_ teach you for now. We will work on the meditation you practiced before.”

Luke nodded. He didn't know how much time he would have before Vader needed his presence again, but this was what he had opened the holocron for. He closed his eyes, and listened to the sound of Alkamar's guiding voice.

\----

Doctor Aphra had indeed arrived in-system on time, Vader noted. Indeed her presence on board _Executor_ was one of the first things Captain Piett mentioned to him once he returned from Arkanis. She made the Captain nervous – it was due to the fact that he did not know where she fell in the chain of command. She operated independently, more pirate than soldier, so of course he did not like her. 

It did not matter to Vader or – he knew – to Aphra herself whether she was liked by his officers. That was not necessary for her to do her job. Thus far she had not disappointed him, and he had long since accepted that despite the decision he had _thought_ he had made in the wake of the near-disaster on Anthan Prime, he was not going to kill her any time soon. She was far too useful. In addition, he needed all the loyal agents he could get at this point. 

Vader finished briefing Piett on the situation of Arkanis itself, then ordered that Aphra should be brought up to one of the situation rooms aft of the bridge to speak to him. While he waited for her arrival, he busied himself with maps of the Empire's current military disposition – maps he had spent some time working on during their journey here. He also cast his mind back to a series of events that were well over a decade in the past, when a band of terrorists had manipulated the HoloNet to their advantage. He had made a point of learning how they had done this in the aftermath of the incident, and he would need that knowledge now. 

It was easier to do this, to bury himself in his work, than to think about what he had learned on Arkanis. It should no longer surprise him when he uncovered yet another of the Emperor's lies, but he had never suspected that something like this could be occurring without him being aware of it. And yet... he had not been. He had not noticed. He had not cared enough to ask questions because it had not really mattered back then, when he had no other purpose but that which Sidious gave him. 

That was no excuse. But the practise would stop. 

There was a brisk knock at the door. “Enter,” he commanded. 

“Hello boss!” Aphra was in fine fettle, entering with the distinct trace of a swagger, and a wide smile stretched across her face. “A wonderful armada you've assembled here, with help from yours truly of course.”

“You have done well Aphra,” Vader allowed. Her pleasure at the praise was obvious. 

“It's an honour to assist you in reshaping the galaxy,” she said. “And I want to continue doing that in any way I can.”

Her frank honesty was refreshing, her emotions sincere in the Force. “I will have a further task for your shortly,” he told her. “Now that I have slipped the Emperor's trap, all his focus will be on killing me before news of my treachery reaches the wider Empire. We however, must spread the word.”

“Can't exactly bring people over to your side if no-one knows there _is_ a side,” Aphra said, nodding. “I'm guessing the HoloNet will be clamped down tighter than a Grand Moff's rear end – so how do we change _that_ state of affairs?”

“I doubt you are familiar with the _Carrion Spike_ affair,” Vader said. “I have prepared more detailed briefing materials – familiarise yourself with them. The salient point is that a band of terrorists were able to slice into the HoloNet and replace Imperial transmissions with those of their own.”

Aphra nodded, quick on the uptake. “So we do the same thing, and replace a program that's as widely broadcast as possible with a message of our own. I'm guessing we're going to need physical access to a HoloNet station of some kind to do this?”

“Correct. Your target is also in the briefing.”

Aphra accepted the datapad from him, nearly vibrating with excitement. “It'll be nice to use my specialist skills again,” she said. “Not that chatting up Imps isn't lovely in itself.”

“You may yet have to do that again,” Vader warned her. 

Aphra shrugged. “Any sacrifice for the cause.”

\----

Lord Vader had returned from the planet not long ago, his mission having been a somewhat qualified success, and had returned to the bridge almost immediately to tell Piett what should be done next. Vader had apparently spoken briefly with the Governor, although not yet revealed the full truth about his presence here, and had uncovered some kind of treachery on the part of the Academy's Commandant which – although it allowed for his removal from a position of authority – made him unsuitable to bring over to their side. As to the stormtroopers Vader had intended to procure... that, it seemed, would have to wait until the transfer of power to the Commandant's replacement had gone through. Simply taking them would raise more questions than they wanted to answer at present. Things were at a delicate stage. 

In the meantime, there was still much to be done. Vader had called a meeting of all the newly-arrived Captains along with _Executor's_ top staff. They had been shuttling over to _Executor_ ever since. All that remained was for the last of them to arrive, and they could begin. 

Piett had set aside a meeting room in the bridge-tower, a few floors down from the bridge itself. The room was so new that the holotable had still had its protective cover over the top of it, and the computers had needed to run through full installation protocols when they were switched on. But that also meant it was shining, clean, without a speck of dust anywhere. The synth-leather chairs had a fresh squeak and a movement as smooth as glass. Piett had given orders for the Captains to be shown there as they arrived, and provided with refreshments until the meeting started, hoping to encourage a sense of camaraderie and an opportunity for the officers to talk amongst themselves. Of course he would be listening in to those conversations – but they would be expecting that. It was simply how things were done. 

The conversation itself had not been anything particularly interesting. Introductions, breaking the ice, discussions of recent military and political happenings in the galaxy that did not include the treachery they were all now involved in... they would all get to the meat of things soon enough. 

The last Captain had just arrived. Piett left the bridge and went to find Lord Vader. The man was in one of the situation-rooms to aft of the bridge itself, studying a map of the galaxy. Swathes of it were picked out in various colours, but Piett had no time to work out their meaning at present. He coughed politely. 

“Ah, Piett,” Lord Vader said, turning. “Let us proceed then. Have someone fetch Commander Organa. My son will meet us there.”

Piett didn't bother to ask how Commander Skywalker would know that it was time. He assumed it was a thing of the Force, and simply trusted in that much. What was less clear to him was why there would be any need for the presence of the rebel princess, but he was sure that he would find out the reason for it in due course. He commed one of the ensigns and gave the order, then fell into step with Vader. By the time they arrived at the meeting room, Vader's son was standing in the corridor outside. He looked tired, drained, like someone at the end of a long shift – but not so badly that Piett would have ordered the boy to go rest if he had been one of his officers. 

There was another silent exchange between Lord Vader and his son – Piett expected he would get used to this as one of the quirks of working with a pair of Force-sensitives, but at the moment it still left him a little uneasy. Then Vader nodded, and strode into the meeting room. Piett followed on his heels. 

The assembled Captains snapped to startled attention at Lord Vader's entrance, many still holding cups and plates of food. 

“You may be seated,” Vader told them, then stood waiting, filling the room with the noise of his respirator, until they had all found their places. Piett took the opportunity to study the assembled officers, if not for the first time, trying to look past first impressions. He would be working with these people for the foreseeable future. It was important he understand their characters. Most of them were his age or younger, Outer Rim or Mid Rim by their accents – no vaunted scions of powerful families here. These were men – and a few women – hungry for the power and advancement that they deserved, but which would be hard for them to get in the Emperor's Navy. Some were idealists too, and maybe more so than not. Piett was a little too cynical a man to call himself an idealist, but that didn't mean he was incapable of hope for better things. 

And now Vader was giving him, giving all of them, a chance to make hopes into reality. 

Three seats had been left at the side of the table facing the door. One was a high-backed chair reinforced with durasteel unlike all the rest – and no questions who that was meant for. Vader sent it sliding back without touching it to make space for himself to sit down – and Piett did not miss the atavistic shudders that went through several of the others. It seemed they shared his unease with the vaguely-defined powers of the Force, even if having it on their side ought to have been some small comfort. And they hadn't even seen what he had – the pin-point destruction of three Star-Destroyers co-ordinated by two teenagers. That was enough to make any sensible person afraid.

Piett took the seat on the left, leaving the right-hand one for Commander Skywalker. None were left for the rebel when she arrived, but that had been his design. He permitted himself a tiny smile of satisfaction – bad enough Lord Vader wanted her here for whatever reason, but they didn't have to make a dissident _comfortable_.

“You all know the purpose for which I have brought you here,” Vader said. “We are all committed to the Empire and what it stands for; peace and order across the galaxy. The Emperor's actions of late no longer serve these aims. Permitted to continue, everything each one of us has worked to achieve will be destroyed.” The assembled officers were all nodding. No doubt they had heard similar sentiments from Vader's agent, and if they did not agree then they would not be here. Of course there was always a chance that there might be a spy amongst their number, but Piett had faith in Lord Vader's abilities. If there was deception, he would detect it – and the Emperor must know this. He would not be so unsubtle. 

“The Emperor has become aware of us,” Vader continued. “He has tried to strike the first blow, fearing what we will do, and he has failed. War will come – but you have chosen the side of merit. The side which truly wishes to protect the people of this galaxy.”

“Lord Vader...” This was Captain Needa, Piett noted, of the _Avenger._ Brave, to be the first one to speak up. “I will confess to having had doubts about our military methods for some time now, and I can't express how much of a relief it was to hear your agent echo them. But there aren't many of us. When I received your summons I thought perhaps we were to strike in secret – but the Emperor already knows we're out here.” The man hesitated, clearly feeling the weight of Vader's regard, unreadable behind the mask. “I suppose my question is whether – or when – you will be announcing all this to the rest of the Empire. I'm sure there must be others out there, others like us, who would only be too eager to join...”

Vader held up a hand to stop him. “In due course,” he said. “The Emperor's control over the HoloNet is not so easily broken, but it can be done. For now we must prepare. You were chosen for your military abilities as well as your politics, but I am aware that few of you are experienced in fleet operations.”

“War games, my lord?” another Captain asked. Piett tried to recall how he had introduced himself... Pellaeon, of the _Chimera,_ he believed. He was not so good with names that he could internalise those of twenty strangers in short order.

“Correct,” Vader told him. “Arkanis Sector will be our primary base of operations at present. Once I have assessed your capabilities, the fleet will be divided into squadrons and we will begin our work. To ensure proper chain of command I am therefore promoting Captain Piett to Admiral.”

Piett tried not to let his surprise show on his face. He hadn't expected... but that was no reason to let himself gawp at his own commander like an ensign fresh out of the Academy. None of the other Captains here could be pleased by the news, ambitious as they no doubt were and having no knowledge of his capabilities, but no-one was about to argue with Darth Vader.

"That is not all we must discuss, however.” He gestured to Commander Skywalker. “Your curiosity has been noted. This is my son, Luke.”

The reaction to that was nothing but sheer, unadulterated shock. Piett didn't need the Force to feel it as an almost physical thing suffocating the room. He could sympathise. He wasn't entirely sure he had come to terms with it himself quite yet. 

No-one wanted to be the first to break the silence with the questions that were no doubt on everyone's minds. After a moment, Vader spoke again. “The details of my son's birth and childhood are irrelevant to you. All that is, is the knowledge of his existence – and that in my absence you obey him as you would me. If I discover otherwise...” There was no need to complete the threat. Vader's reputation spoke for itself. 

“There is one final matter,” Vader continued.

“The future government, Lord Vader?” another Captain – Branta – asked, somewhat hopefully. 

“Your ambition is no secret, Captain Branta,” Vader replied. Something about the way he said it made Piett glad he wasn't in Branta's shoes right now. “But it is foolishness to speak of victory when it remains far from our grasp. This concerns the band of terrorists and trouble-makers known as the Rebel Alliance.”

Piett had been purposefully looking at Skywalker as soon as Vader started to say those words, so he saw the slight flinch, the uncomfortable way he shifted in his seat. It only furthered his suspicions about where the boy had been before his father got his hands on him. 'Force-assisted targeting took down the Death Star'? And how many Force-sensitive pilots did the rebel scum have? There was Organa, of course, but she was no pilot. Could Vader's son really be... 

It was possible, but it was also possible that he was not. The rebels had proven ties to what remained of the Jedi Order, so it wasn't unthinkable that they had been making a point of collecting Force-sensitive individuals. There was no proof against Skywalker, only a burden of evidence... But if there had been proof? What exactly did Piett think he was going to do about it? 

The Death Star had been a monstrosity – a waste of resources, a waste of manpower, and the worst example of Tarkin's heavy-handed approach to galactic peace imaginable. There had been loyal Imperial citizens on Alderaan – as Needa had said, the score of them were hardly the only ones to be having doubts about the Empire's methods in their current political climate. Destroying the battlestation might have been for the best in the long run, but so many had died... Stormtroopers, officers, workers, even alien prisoners on construction details. Deaths which could be laid at the feet of this young man – if Piett was right. 

He had been frightened enough by what Skywalker was capable of already – the thought of that power on the side of rebel terrorists... Thank the Force then that Vader had brought him around to the side of the Empire. 

“The rebels have been growing stronger with each passing month,” Vader was saying. “Only further evidence of the Emperor's failure. However we cannot fight a war on two fronts whilst our numbers remain low – and it is possible that the rebels may be of some use to us.”

Piett winced internally. He wanted to speak up – but he wasn't about to risk his position as Vader's right-hand Captain. It was more important to present a united front to the others. 

“The Rebellion is more likely to turn on us than help us,” Captain Branta said. “My lord, we cannot trust them.”

“Right now we have the same goals though,” Captain Needa objected. “They may be demagogues and ideologists, but there are those amongst their number that are capable of pragmatism, otherwise they would have failed long ago. And given that they work with pirates and smugglers...”

“There is hardly any sort of ideological objection there,” Captain Liaan said, speaking for the first time and in echo of Piett's own thoughts. “They want a return to the most corrupt and lawless days of the Republic, when those kind of people had near free reign.”

“Yet their propaganda claims they desire the best for the people of the galaxy,” Needa pointed out. “That's hypocrisy already, so would it really be any more so to work with us?”

“Imperial officers defect to them from time to time, and get rewarded with positions in their hierarchy,” Liaan said. “So I'd imagine it's possible. Just... Lord Vader, you might be more of a problem for them.”

“I am aware of this,” Vader replied. It was almost a joke – the first time Piett had heard anything of the sort from the man. “However we have some bargaining chips. Piett, see if our prisoner has arrived.”

Piett nodded, rising and going to the door. Indeed five stormtroopers were waiting in the corridor outside, with Leia Organa cuffed between them. Piett gestured for them to bring her into the room. 

“Captains,” Vader said. “This is Commander Leia Organa of Alderaan.”


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Leia finds yet more reasons to get angry at Imperials, Mon Mothma is concerned, and Luke tells Ezra something he really needs to know.

**1 ABY – SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

Leia had been wondering for a while why she – or any of her fellow rebels – was still alive. When the squad of stormtroopers pulled open the door to the room where they were being held, she thought she might finally find out. Either that, or she was being marched to her execution. Her first instinct was to fight, but they had evidently been expecting this. 

“Don't try anything,” the squad sergeant said, coming in with his blaster held at the ready. “And particularly no Force trickery. This blaster isn't set to stun, and we don't necessarily need any of your friends here alive.”

Leia believed him. He kept the blaster trained on Han as one of the other troopers approached her with a pair of binders. Grudgingly, she held out her wrists and allowed them to be clamped on. “Where are you taking me?” she asked them, dispassionate. She was angry – more than that, furious – but with as long as they had been held captive she had been able to tamp that feeling down rather than stewing on it. It wasn't easy but she had practise; every other time the Empire had done something terrible, inhumane, and she hadn't been able to do anything about it. That had been the worst part of being a Senator, the whole farce of it. It had been meaningless apart from the her true role of gathering information for the Alliance. At least since the Senate had been dissolved she had never had to sit across a table from the worst scum in the galaxy and smile like she enjoyed their company. 

The anger was still there, but she wouldn't let it override her sense of reason. Neither she or any of the others had been able to come up with a workable escape plan yet since their last one went so wrong, but now she was out of that room an opportunity might present itself. She had to be ready to leap on any chance that came along. 

The stormtroopers marched her through the endless identical corridors of the Super Star Destroyer, stopping only to take a turbolift upwards, before they came to a halt outside an unassuming door. There was no clue outwardly as to what might be within, but Leia had been feeling the presence of Darth Vader growing ever stronger as they walked. And not only Vader, but Luke as well – she no longer had any problems sensing him since they joined their strength together in the Force. She was sure that was significant somehow, but Ahsoka hadn't mentioned anything like it – and who knew now if she would ever get the chance to ask. 

They waited. Leia ignored the troopers around her and reached for the Force instead, feeling her way gently outwards to get a sense of where they were in the ship. Still in the bridge-tower, a few levels below the bridge itself. There was a large room full of people on the other side of that door – a score of minds in various states of anxiety, slight fear, but also hope and ambition and a strange kind of fervour. She could only assume they were Imperial officers, although those weren't all exactly the kind of emotions she might have expected from people sharing space with Darth Vader.

Luke wasn't exactly feeling happy to be in there, she noted. She had been able to speak to him, mind to mind, during their joint meditation on the bridge. She wondered if she could do it again. 

_Luke,_ she thought, trying to push the words towards the light in the Force that was her brother. _Can you hear me?_

_Leia!_ His surprise was clear. _Are you okay? I thought I felt you coming..._

_Being brought here, you mean,_ she replied. _What does Vader want with me?_

_I don't know. A whole bunch of Star Destroyers arrived in the system not long ago, and their Captains all came over to Executor for this meeting. Everyone here is loyal to Vader, not the Emperor – and it sounds like they're not the only ones out there who will be, once we get the word out._

Leia frowned. So this was the start of Vader's plan for his coup. In other circumstances, if Alderaan wasn't gone, if Vader wasn't who he was, the whole thing wouldn't have mattered so much to her – she would have simply been glad the Empire was fracturing itself, offering up opportunities for the Alliance to make an even greater difference. The outcome for the Imperial military – who lived, who died, which side even won in the end – would have been irrelevant, aside from the obvious hope that Vader and the Emperor would simply kill each other. Every dead Imperial die-hard or figure of authority was a blessing to the Alliance. But that was before Luke was involved. 

Rex had been right that she wasn't able to be impartial. She would never accept Vader as family even if Luke did, and she wanted him dead. But she didn't want any harm to come to her brother, and she had started to wonder if she wanted Vader's death more than that of the Emperor. The Emperor was the true architect of all the Empire's evils; Vader was just his enforcer, the tool that saw his will done. She knew that logically, but what was logic in the face of her anger? And yet... the harm Vader had done to her personally shouldn't outweigh that in her rationale for what she did about this situation. Not that she would go as far as Luke in justifying working with an only slightly lesser evil to bring the Emperor down, but she could see the point Rex had made, that the Alliance _should_ leave the two factions of the Empire to fight and simply take advantage of the chaos. 

Luke's sudden stab of surprise shook Leia out of her thoughts. _What just happened_? she asked him, pushing out her concern towards him. 

_Vader told the Captains I'm his son and they should follow my orders,_ Luke replied. _I suppose I shouldn't be surprised but I thought he was going to keep me a secret – and I really didn't think he'd give me that kind of authority._

_How wonderful for you,_ Leia replied sarcastically. 

Luke didn't engage with that. She could feel that he didn't want to argue – and neither did she when it came down to it. _Now they're talking about the Alliance,_ Luke told her. _I think Vader wants to make some kind of agreement with High Command._

_Just what does he have in mind?_ Leia said, disgusted. She didn't trust Vader in the slightest – whatever he wanted would only lead to evil in the end, and certainly not any kind of real benefit for the Rebel Alliance. At least now she had some clue as to why she was here though. 

_I don't know,_ Luke replied. He was silent for a little while longer, then added, _Piett is about to bring you in_.

The door hissed open. Leia stepped forwards before either of the troopers standing behind her could give her a push, walking past the with her head held high and the regal posture her tutors had drilled into her at a young age. Inside, she was met by Vader's steady gaze beneath the mask, as well as a good twenty Imperial officers, all with Captain's rank badges, and of course her brother. He gave her an apologetic look. 

“Captains,” Vader said. “This is Commander Leia Organa of Alderaan.”

“Huh,” someone said. “I thought she was dead.” Leia bristled. 

“I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised the Princess of Alderaan is a rebel,” another captain added. “There had been rumours about the Royal House of Alderaan for some time...”

_If she wasn't before, no wonder she is now,_ someone thought; so loudly she couldn't help but hear it. 

“Enough,” Vader said – and Leia felt the pulse of his displeasure in the Force. “Commander, you are aware of why you have been brought here?”

“You want to speak to the Alliance” Leia replied. “As though High Command would buy anything _you're_ selling.”

“That is not for you to decide,” Vader said. “You do not have the authority to speak for the entirety of the Alliance.”

The fact that he was right was galling. Besides, this was the sort of decision that would affect the entire Rebel Alliance, and personal involvement aside she had no right to chose for everyone else. “I refuse to do anything that would compromise the safety of High Command,” she said. 

Vader nodded. “No, you are not so foolish. But it is not in our interests to fight a war on two fronts.”

“I could still refuse,” Leia pointed out. 

“Yes. And then another way would be found. This is convenience, not necessity.”

She had no doubt that he was right. High Command didn't exactly make themselves easy to find, but the Alliance as a great and complicated whole? There needed to be routes, channels, for the purposes of recruitment if nothing else. And when the source of the message was Darth Vader, it would be passed up the chain of command with all possible speed. Refusing to do this wouldn't gain her anything, and wouldn't hurt Vader either – not as anything more than a minor inconvenience. 

“If I do this, I want some privacy,” she demanded. “Only then will I pass on your damn message.” At least this way she would have a chance to talk to Command, to tell them what was going on and what a kriff-fest everything had turned out to be.

Vader nodded, as though he had been expecting something very much like this. “Agreed. You will be supplied with a secure communications channel – Spectre's astromech droid will be able to verify that it is not being monitored or traced. A list of preliminary conditions of any arrangement will be provided. If your commanders wish to discuss this further then they can speak to me once their decision is made.”

Leia couldn't find any objection to any of that – although she was sure she would when she looked through this list of 'preliminary conditions'. “Very well,” she said cautiously. 

“Should we be leaving the rebel alone in contact with the leaders of her rag-tag excuse for an army?” one of the officers asked, bristling. 

“She knows nothing that could be used against us,” Vader replied. That wasn't exactly true – she knew about Luke, she knew how many of them there were and could probably describe most of them with a fair degree of accuracy – but unless they were going to sell that information to the Emperor the Alliance was hardly placed to act on any of it. And they would never help Palpatine like that. 

The Imp officers seemed to accept Vader's words, although it wasn't as though they had much choice. 

“Take her next door and see to the appropriate arrangements,” Vader said, addressing the officer who had brought her into the room.

Leia followed the man back into the corridor and a little way along it. The space she was shown into was small, the lights dimmed to better show holos or screen transmissions, but the equipment was brand new and looked barely touched. Piett used his code cylinder to activate the communications terminal and set up the outgoing line. 

“I assume you know the appropriate channel codes,” he said, getting out of her way. 

“You can leave now,” Leia told him, glaring. If Vader was going to allow her privacy, she would kriffing well have it. The sharp edge of her words didn't seem to phase him. 

“The astromech droid will be brought to you,” he said, and handed her a datachip. Leia took it carefully. 

“Let me guess,” she said. “Vader's demands.”

“If your commanders are sensible, they'll agree to them,” Piett replied, then left her to it. The door shutting behind him slammed into place with a loud click of engaging locks. Leia ignored it, and turned back to the terminal. She couldn't see any obvious signs of tampering, and although there was limited access from the terminal itself there was enough of a self-diagnostic loaded to run. She activated it while she waited. It didn't show up any surveillance programs, but she hadn't really expected it to whether they existed or not. 

It seemed like a long time before the door hissed open again, but that was just boredom, rearing its tiresome head despite the circumstances. Chopper wheeled through the opening at speed, waving his manipulator arms in the air and burbling angrily. He rounded on Leia and began some kind of tirade in binary. Leia let it go on for a bit before she interrupted. 

“I can't speak binary, remember,” she told the droid. “So I don't care if you don't feel like helping me right now – you need to for the good of the Alliance. For the good of your friends, if that holds more weight.”

The first was true, the latter more of a stretch. Still, Sabine and Rex would have been for this, if she'd been able to ask their opinion. Hera and Zeb hadn't wanted anything to do with Vader's coup much like Leia hadn't herself, but if she could come around to – not supporting it, or helping it – but at least allowing that it existing might be better for the cause that not... 

The astromech seemed to accept this. It trundled over to the terminal and plugged itself in, code momentarily scrolling over the screen before it went back to normal. 

“It's okay?” Leia asked. At least she recognised the answer as a 'yes'. She put in the channel codes that would connect her with Home One, knowing the personal ident she added would get her a speedy reply. What had they thought, she wondered, when her mission failed. When none of them returned. Had they assumed her dead, or simply captured? Either way Command wouldn't have been expecting to hear from her again after so many days – this signal must be causing quite a commotion. 

The wallscreen in front of her flickered; grey, to the static of hyperspace, finally resolving into an image. Three stunned faces stared at her – High Command had answered the call. 

\----

**1 ABY – _Home One_ , undisclosed location**

It had been several days since she had authorised Leia's mission. They should have heard back from them no more than half a standard rotation after that, but there had been nothing. Mon Mothma feared the worst. She had been hesitant about allowing this, but she knew Bail's daughter. Leia took adversity as a challenge, not something to bow to. After Alderaan her desire to fight the Empire had doubled, and when it came to Vader, last survivor of the Death Star... No, Leia wouldn't have listened to reason. Besides, her point had been inarguable. Mon had reviewed _Executor's_ blueprints, just as Rieekan and Dodonna had. The ship was a prototype, a proof of concept – and if the Alliance could prove that it was vulnerable in dry-dock, that the long construction time invited attack, that the Rebellion had grown so strong that it could bring down a vessel like that... 

But she could only assume from the silence that it had all gone wrong. That their forces were dead, or captured. 

Vader had tried very hard to kill Leia the last time the two had come face to face. If he _had_ been on board, then she was dead. Bad enough whatever grudge he had been carrying before, but now that she had been working with Fulcrum to learn the ways of the Jedi... Vader had long ago made it his mission to wipe out what remained of that Order. Even the Emperor's no-kill bounty on Leia's head wouldn't have saved her. Capturing Leia would have been better for the Empire politically and as propaganda, but it seemed the sort of order Vader could get away with flouting. 

Anakin Skywalker had been stubborn like that, given everything Padmé had told her about the man. 

Mon still couldn't quite fit that thought into her head. Vader was Skywalker. Impossible – except that it had been confirmed by none other than Skywalker's Jedi padawan, of all people. It _was_ true... and none of it fit. Even if she hadn't had Padmé's own stories born of her friend's personal experience, she had watched all the HoloNet coverage about the Hero With No Fear. Anakin Skywalker was a hero, a bold fighter, committed to the ideals of the Republic, well known for his unusual military tactics. That much she could see from Vader as a dark mirror of who he had been before. But the loyalty to Palpatine? The well-known fact in the Imperial Senate that he was not much more than the instrument of the Emperor's will with about as much self-agency as a droid? 

Half of Padmé's tales had been about times that Skywalker ignored the Jedi Council, partially or outright! And she was expected to believe _that_ was the same man? A man who had broken one of the foremost rules of the Jedi Order and fathered a son? 

That... that was another problem Mon hadn't yet had time to fully consider. She had recognised the boy's name as soon as she was told the identity of the pilot who had destroyed the Death Star, and so many things about the last months of Padmé's life had become clear. She had intended to speak to him at some point, find out how much he knew about his mother, but Leia had claimed the boy for her squad and then he never seemed to be around for more than a day at a time. Now he was lost to them, taken by Vader. By his father. 

Did such a thing even mean anything to Vader anymore? He had killed children in the past – if he was capable of that would even his own be safe from him? 

That did not even touch upon what she was truly frightened of – the possibility that Luke might become another Vader. Mon had never worked with a Jedi; she knew little about the Force and its workings. It was magic and mystery. But something about being able to use it made one able to 'fall', whatever that meant – and to fall was to become capable of terrible things. But that was nothing more than rumours and superstition from the days of the Republic, speculation because the Jedi Order had been so very tight-lipped, so secretive about themselves. 

Mon shook herself out of her darkening thoughts. She was meant to be meeting with the other members of High Command shortly, to decide their next move in the wake of the _Executor_ failure. Rieekan and Dodonna would be waiting for her. 

Indeed they were – but the atmosphere in the room as she entered was tense and electric. The two generals were staring at the communication terminal and the holoscreen above it. The light of an incoming transmission was blinking unanswered. 

“What's going on?” Mon asked, taking her seat. 

“This came through moments ago,” Rieekan said. “It's tagged with Commander Organa's codes.”

Mon's breath stuck in her throat. “The Imperials?” she asked. 

“We don't know,” Rieekan replied. “But... she didn't give anything up when Alderaan itself was on the line – she wouldn't have broken this quickly. Surely it has to be her!”

“Staring at it won't answer the question,” Mon said sharply, and leaned forwards to open the channel. The screen flashed on. 

It _was_ Leia. She looked stressed and poorly-rested, but she was alive and otherwise unharmed. 

“Leia...” Mon said. “How...?”

“I'm an Imperial prisoner,” Leia said – a warning for them to watch their words, “but this line at least is secure. They aren't tracing it or listening in directly, but that doesn't mean this room isn't being monitored.”

“Commander Organa, your mission...” Dodonna began. “What _happened?_ ”

“Yes... we better had get that out of the way first,” Leia said. She sounded harried, unhappy. Of course given the circumstances that was only natural. “Resistance was much heavier than we expected. Vader and his stormtroopers cornered our group and wore down our numbers. Myself, Han and Chewbacca were all captured, as was Captain Rex.”

“The engine team?” Rieekan asked. 

“The members of Spectre cell were taken prisoner too,” Leia said. “The rest were killed, by the Inquisitor that used to be Ezra Bridger – one of Spectre's own.” She looked away, biting back anger. “We were all escorted up to the bridge – that's when we found out there was something else going on. We weren't the only ones trying to kill Vader.”

Dodonna and Rieekan both leaned forwards eagerly. “Go on Commander,” Dodonna said. 

“Vader's been planning a coup,” Leia said bluntly. Mon couldn't hold back her little gasp of surprise. 

“He's turned against the Emperor?” she said, shocked. Hadn't she just been wondering about the man's loyalty? It was hard to believe, but Leia would have no reason to lie to them. “For how long... and are you saying that Palpatine found out about this?”

“He must have,” Leia said, “given he sent his Inquisitors to kill him, and the trooper complements of three Star Destroyers to invade _Executor_. Anyway, it didn't work. Vader's still alive, and we're all still his prisoners on _Executor._ ”

Mon put two and two together. “Vader wanted you to contact us,” she said. Leia nodded. “Why? What does he want? What is he planning now?”

“He's still going ahead with it,” Leia said. “Killing the Emperor, taking over. There's about twenty Imp Captains on board here – although I don't know what system we're in – and I assume they brought their Star Destroyers with them. We could speculate about what military target they might strike first but I don't think we're likely to narrow it down much. As to what he wants with the Alliance...” She looked like she had just bitten into something sour. “He wants to come to an arrangement of some kind, while he fights the Emperor.”

Rieekan swore quietly. “I was shocked enough just seeing you alive without hearing all of this as well,” he said. “I hope he's not expecting an answer right away. This is something we're going to have to discuss – and I can't imagine that being an easy decision to agree on.”

“Leia, you have the most information about the situation there,” Mon said. “Why is Vader doing this? Why now?”

“I don't know, and I don't much care,” Leia replied. “He's a monster, and he's an Imp. He wants power; they all do.”

Mon didn't think it was anything as simple as that. If Vader had wanted the Emperor dead surely he had been presented with many opportunities over the years. Palpatine trusted him – probably not as a political confidante or player of the great game, but as a bodyguard at least. Vader's loyalty had never before been in question. Something had to have changed. 

She tried to think. Of course there had been many changes of late. There was much turmoil in the galaxy. The Alliance had enough intelligence of Vader's actions in recent months of know he had been punished for the Death Star's destruction by being placed under the command of Grand General Tagge, but surely that by itself wouldn't have been enough. And surely it couldn't have been the construction of the Death Star. Vader had participated in too many atrocities for Alderaan to have moved him. And Luke – Vader son – had been captured of course, but Leia hadn't mentioned him. Who knew if he was even still alive, or if family meant anything anymore to Vader?

Nothing else came to her mind. 

“Vader has some 'preliminary conditions',” Leia told them, with the same expression of distaste. “They're on a datachip, so I haven't seen them for myself.”

Dodonna nodded. “If you send them over this channel we can put them on an isolated system for analysis.”

“How are we meant to contact you when we've come to a decision?” Rieekan asked. 

“Vader was less than clear,” Leia said. “Expect to hear from me again, I suppose.”

“And you yourself?” Mon asked. “How are you and the others holding up?”

“We're surviving,” Leia replied. “Don't worry about us.” 

Mon felt as though there was something that Leia wasn't saying, but this was hardly the time or place to pry. If Leia was trying to spare them from worrying, then she would let her. 

“Then we shall wait, and make sure we have an answer for Vader,” Mon said. “Stay strong, Leia.”

The computer let out a soft beep as the datachip download finished. Leia reached out and terminated the connection. Mon sat back in her chair, pressing her fingers to the corners of her eyes momentarily before recovering her composure again. It was a relief to know that Leia was alive, but if one weight had been lifted from her shoulders it was only to pile another one on after it. As if she hadn't had enough revelations about Vader of late! 

“We need to reach out to our generals and admirals,” Rieekan was saying. “Get an idea how they might react to this. The Emperor will try and keep this quiet but there's only so long he can do so – and knowing Vader has turned traitor can only help our cause! The Empire is crumbling in the wake of the battle of Yavin!”

“We must be cautious,” Dodonna replied. “Let us examine these conditions Commander Organa spoke of before we even begin to think of committing to anything.”

Mon nodded. “I'll have our best slicer up here to scour that data for malicious code as soon as possible. Then we can get an idea of what we're dealing with here.” Once she would have thought she knew what to expect from the demands of someone like Vader. Now she was far less sure. 

\----

**1 ABY – SSD _Executor_ , Arkanis system, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

Luke thought Leia seemed to be coming around a little bit. At least, she had started to agree that the Alliance would be best off staying out of the way of the coming war between Vader and Sidious, which was maybe as much as he could hope for at the moment. If High Command ended up agreeing... Luke wondered if he could leverage that into getting his friends released. Particularly since his father had openly given him so much authority. 

Although if there had been one good thing about that meeting, it had been listening to those Imperial Captains admit that the Empire's methods were wrong. Maybe they hadn't exactly gone far enough as Luke would have liked, but the Death Star, the atrocities that Sidious was responsible for... it really _wasn't_ just power and advancement that these people wanted. In their own way, they wanted a better, safer galaxy. So there was hope there, hope that maybe his father's Empire wouldn't simply be more of the same underneath the shiny new gloss of a changing regime.

He was still a little off-balance from that, and from his session with Alkamar beforehand. A good night's sleep was sure to improve things some. 

Luke was heading towards his quarters when he came across Ezra in the corridor. Well, it was less that he came across him, and more that Ezra had clearly been waiting there for him. His hssiss were with him as always, sitting back on their haunches, alert but calm. Ezra looked... less than happy. Luke realised that he hadn't really seen him properly since arriving at Arkanis, and they hadn't had a proper conversation since... since Vjun really. 

“Hey,” he said softly. “How are you?” 

“Frustrated, among other things,” Ezra replied. “Mostly about Spectre. I don't know what I was hoping... not that I ever thought I would see any of them again. I know what I did, the bargain I made for their safety. I wasn't expecting them to _forgive_ me for... for killing Kanan. I just thought they might at least understand why... that it had to be done...”

“I'm sorry,” Luke said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I wanted to go see them,” Ezra told him, “but I couldn't. I don't know how they are, if they're coping with being prisoners... Would you...?”

“Check in on them for you? Yes, of course.” He had been avoiding his friends too, but he couldn't keep on doing that. Hadn't it been awkward enough seeing Leia again when she was dragged into that meeting? He couldn't keep doing this – he _had_ to go and talk to them. He was more than happy to speak to Ezra's adopted family at the same time. 

“I don't want them to be prisoners forever,” Ezra said abruptly, the words simply spilling out of him. “I want them free, even if it means they'll go back to the Rebel Alliance. I can't stop them making bad choices but they'd still be safer out there than here.” He winced, turning his head away as though he expected to be punished. 

“Ezra, I more than understand,” Luke said, reaching out to grab Ezra's arm and trying to project reassurance down that point of physical contact. “I want the same thing for Leia, Han and Chewie. I tried, before, but I don't think my father is ever going to want to let Leia out of his sight again!”

“But the others?” Ezra asked, a small amount of hope starting to edge into his voice. 

Luke sighed in frustration. “I don't know. He _should_ let them go – we're trying to make some kind of deal with the Alliance and surely that would make it easier... but he hasn't even told me what the conditions of this arrangement are even though he said he would...” He would need to try and speak to his father about that properly tomorrow. When he was as tired as this, a serious conversation wasn't the best idea. 

Although thinking of conversations he had been meaning to have... 

“There's something I've been meaning to ask you,” he told Ezra. “Those other Inquisitors we captured on the bridge. Did you know any of them?” 

“Not in the way I guess you mean,” Ezra said. “We weren't friends. Friends aren't a thing _anyone_ has, in the Inquisitorius. But I know who they are. Why?”

“I suppose I'm just curious about them,” Luke replied. “Ben – Obi-Wan I mean – never told me that the Empire had any other Force-sensitives aside from Vader and the Emperor. Meeting you was the first time I found out that Inquisitors existed. And when we were down on Arkanis...”

Ezra nodded, seeming relieved to talk about something other than their friends. “You visited Area Null. I've never been there myself, but I know it's a kind of testing grounds for the kids that pass both the aptitude tests and screening by an Inquisitor. Because I was already a padawan, they took me straight to Mustafar.”

“I didn't see very much of it myself,” Luke said cautiously. Just the crèche – which he suspected Ezra was as much in the dark about as Vader had been. But just in case... “What's Project Harvester?” 

“Just what they call the aptitude pathway – you know how the Empire is with its codenames.” Ezra rolled his eyes a little bit. 

“That's different to how the old Jedi Order used to find its children though isn't it,” Luke said. “Did the holocrons they showed you on Mustafar mention how they did it?”

“Some kind of blood test,” Ezra said, frowning. “I'm not entirely sure. If you look back at some of the laws of the Republic though it's all right there – mandatory testing for any hospital-born baby. And if someone is strong in the Force you can often feel it about them even as a child. I know I was ordered that if I came across any kid like that I was to let the Grand Inquisitor know so we could get their information in the system for later.”

Luke sighed. How to break this to him? He didn't want this to be yet another disappointment on top of all those others that had been affecting Ezra of late, but he didn't see how it could come as anything else. Ezra had always been firm in his belief that unlike his Jedi teacher Kanan, the Inquisitorius had never lied to him – and yet they had, and in a way he would actually be able to see and prove, unable to deny. 

Luke couldn't keep it from him either, not now that he knew. That would make him just as bad, and Ezra wasn't likely to forgive him if he found out some other way. 

“There were... children down there,” he said finally, before his silence stretched on too long. “Young ones, too young to have taken any of the kind of tests you've told me about. Vader didn't know about it either – we asked one of the Inquisitors down there and she said it was all part of Project Harvester.”

“What... what are you saying?”

“I'm saying the Inquisitorius has been stealing children just like the Jedi once did,” Luke said, trying to be gentle about it – but there was only so gentle he could be when his own anger still burned hot under his skin whenever he thought about what they had done. 

Ezra shook his head, a wordless denial. His shields cracked and split, letting the welter of his emotions leak out into the Force. The two hssiss snarled, sensing their master's horror and disbelief. 

“I saw it,” Luke said. “And the Inquisitor didn't deny it. But they've been keeping it from anyone who might protest; you, my father...”

“But...” Ezra closed his eyes, took in a deep shuddering breath. “I need to think about this.”

He pushed away and strode off at speed down the hallway, just shy of breaking into a run. Luke watched him go, guilt welling up in his throat. But he would have found out in the end – and he needed to know. Not because Luke was trying to drive a rift between him and the Inquisitorius – although he'd hardly shed a tear if that _did_ happen – but because it was _important._

And if Ezra needed further proof, Luke would make sure he had it.


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Luke has a puzzling vision, Alliance High Command discover something surprising in Vader's Terms&Conditions, and Luke checks in on his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Krayt Dragon things are taken at least in part from Fialleril's Tatooine headcanons, as always. Read their stuff, it's excellent.

**1 ABY – SSD _Executor_ , Arkanis system, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

After his conversation with Ezra Luke hadn't expected to be able to fall asleep quickly given what they had talked about, but it seemed the day's events were catching up with him. Instead of tossing and turning, he drifted off almost the moment his head hit the pillow. 

Then, he was standing in a dark hall with pillars reaching up all around him, losing themselves in shadow. The only light was the glow of his lightsaber, illuminating a few sparse meters all around him. It was very still, and very quiet. There was no sound. Luke raised the saber higher, looking around, searching for something that would tell him where he was. Nothing was familiar. Following the tug of instinct in his chest he slipped between the pillars in front of him and then along between long rows of them, wide-spaced apart. Something – anticipation, dread – was catching at the breath in his throat, making it shudder faster in and out of his lungs. 

A shape loomed out of the darkness. Too tall for the lightsaber alone to show the whole expanse of it, but Luke could see feet, legs, robes, the bottom-most parts of hands and arms. A statue. Someone sitting with the soles of their feet pressed together and brought in close to their body, palms of their hands outstretched before them. 

A familiar smell – perhaps no more than a change in the quality of the air – reached him. He might have left Tatooine months ago but he could still sniff out fresh water, even if he had been exposed to more of it in that time than in his entire life before combined. He moved closer to investigate, and found three deep wide bowls of water at the statue's feet. Something about this seemed as though he ought to recognise it. An old story, old tales Aunt Beru had passed down from his grandmother... Three moons, three wells... 

Something shifted in the darkness. 

Luke whirled around, bringing his saber into guard position. He could see nothing – that did not mean there was nothing to be seen. Again movement, sensed not seen, and accompanied by the sound... a harsh rasp like leather against stone. And clicking, lighter, tap after tap in a ponderous rhythm. Whatever it was, it was going nowhere fast. Should he approach it, or simply let it come to him? 

The lightsaber's glow was picking something up now. Something massive, dragging its bulk over the flagstone floor, winding its way between pillars. A head on a long neck came swooping towards him, into the sphere of light... and Luke took an involuntary step backwards, almost knocking over one of the bowls. The krayt dragon tilted one milky eye towards him, but didn't seem to see him. She paused for a moment and breathed. Slow pants, each ending in an unhealthy rattle. What little he could see of her was covered in scars, and even those first two limbs – all that was visible of her body thus far – did not look quite right. Broken and healed wrong. 

Luke edged away. As long as he was quiet and careful, there didn't seem to be any danger - the dragon didn't know he was here. 

He was so busy focusing on the creature that he walked right into something hard and unforgiving, solid as stone. He recoiled, turning just enough to see what it was, then stared as he tried to make sense of it. A massive grey hand blocked his path – he turned his gaze upwards, following the arm, and found himself looking into a calm, wise, huge face. It was the statue. 

The statue raised its other hand, putting a finger to its lips. Bent over towards him, the light could illuminate it a little more, so Luke could begin to make out more of its features. It was humanoid, but genderless in face and with its body concealed beneath plain, carven robes. Neither old nor young, the figure seemed outside of time, a cypher in stone. 

The krayt dragon was making her hesitant way closer. She coughed again, wracking, gurgling within her great barrel chest. She was panting, scenting the air with slow flicks of her reptilian tongue. 

Luke glared at the statue. What did it expect from him? It couldn't possibly mean him to _fight_ the dragon – or more accurately, put her out of her misery? No-one fought a krayt dragon. The very thought was sacrilegious. Taboo. The dragons were the desert, guardians and protectors, Elder Sisters of all its many and varied children. Killing one would be to become Kin-slayer and bring the desert's wrath down upon you. 

It couldn't be that. But... what? Could he _help_ her somehow? Surely she wouldn't let him near enough to even try. 

The statue reached down and gestured to the three bowls of water before it. Luke's mouth shaped a soundless 'oh' of realisation as he understood. A phrase flashed across his mind, sourceless but somehow right. 'An offering to Elder Sister.' He lowered his saber and went to examine the bowls more closely. They were wide and heavy – he wouldn't be able to carry one and still hold his lightsaber. He stared at the glowing blade. It was the only source of light in here, but... could he embed it in something? No, the idea seemed disrespectful, to the place he was in and to the weapon itself. 

He sighed. This felt like a test, like the Temple on Vrogas Vas. It seemed there was nothing for it. He depressed the activation stud. 

Darkness enveloped him. Yet he began to realise it was not as complete and entire as he had thought it would be. This wasn't the utter dark of a cave, but the dark of night lit by moonlight. He looked down, and saw that the three bowls were letting out a faint illumination, soft and gentle and barely there but enough to light this space – just. 

Clipping the saber to his belt, Luke slipped his hands underneath the first of the bowls and lifted. The water within rippled, and he staggered under the weight for a moment before he finally got his feet under him and straightened up. He turned, and found the snout of the dragon hovering above him, almost close enough to reach out and touch. Swallowing down his instinctive fear, Luke held the heavy bowl out in front of him as best he could, hoping she would be able to detect the scent of the water. 

The great head dipped. The dry tongue flickered over the surface of the water – and then the dragon was drinking. The bowl seemed to last far longer than it really ought to have done considering its size, but finally the krayt dragon finished, lapping away the last drops. Her breathing seemed to have eased from before, and she carefully laid herself down on the flagstones on her belly, tucking her legs beneath her. 

Luke returned the bowl to its place in front of the statue, keeping an eye on the dragon. She wasn't moving. His hand, now free, hovered over the lightsaber clipped to his belt before he shook his head. No. He still felt a little wary, but somewhat to his surprise he realised he wasn't afraid at all. There was nothing to fear in this temple. In fact there was a kind of curiosity growing in him, a desire to simply... reach out and touch. Not that that would be either wise or sensible, but here in this place those things barely seemed to matter in the face of obeying his heart rather than his head. 

The statue didn't stop him. Luke careful approached the krayt dragon, came closer and closer until he could reach out and touch the vast and solid bulk. His hand seemed drawn away from his body towards the dragon like a magnet to metal. The skin was dry and cold under his palm, like thick pebbled leather. Instinctively he knew it should be warmer than it was. The dragon needed the heat of the suns, not to be trapped in this place in the dark. Someone had hurt her badly – not because they wanted to kill her but because they wanted her to suffer, and suffer endlessly. 

Touching her like this, he could... sense her injuries, her scars. She had been hurt and allowed to heal on her own over and over, heal wrong. Blinded, legs broken and warped, fed slow poison that ate her from the inside... Even now there were deep rents along her barrel chest. Luke couldn't see them but he could _feel_ them, the deep bite of the pain. 

“This is wrong,” he whispered, sick to his stomach. “Whoever did this to you...”

The krayt dragon rumbled, deep in her throat. Not a threat – Luke would have sensed that. A plea, perhaps. Luke turned to look back at the statue. There were still two bowls full of water. He didn't know much about medical care, but wounds should be cleaned, shouldn't they? 

Staggering under the weight, Luke carried another of the bowls over to the dragon and laid it down by her side. He stripped off his shirt and dipped it into the pool, wringing out the excess before approaching the great creature. He had to half-climb over her stretched out legs to reach the wounds, which in the half-light looked like nothing more than the work of gigantic claws. With great care, he began to dab at the crusting of blood that marred the dragon's side. There was a sickly smell, and the fever-heat of infection was warm under his hands. 

It must have been painful, but although the dragon shuddered from time to time, she made no move to throw him off or stop what he was doing. Gradually the blood was washed away, then the pus that welled from the rent skin once the scabs plugging it were removed. The moonlight glow of the water seemed to grow stronger when it touched the krayt dragon's injuries, and Luke was beginning to feel that the wounds didn't look as bad now as they had when he first started. When finally everything was clean, showing only damp red muscle and creamy fat, and the bowl itself nearly empty, Luke upended it to pour the last of the water over the dragon's side – and nearly shouted in shock as the stream of liquid seemed to wash the deep wounds away with it. 

The dragon rumbled again, this time sounding both pleased and relieved. Her head came around, long neck twisting, and she nudged Luke gently with her snout in a way that was almost affectionate. 

“I think I have to put this back,” Luke said to her, lifting up the bowl. The dragon let him past, and he set it down gently again at the statue's feet. He looked up at the stone figure, wondering if it was going to move again. Things felt... unfinished. Whatever all of this was about, it wasn't over yet. 

Sightless though she might be, the krayt dragon still seemed to be watching him expectantly. Luke sighed. In touching her before he had only sensed the physical, he hadn't done anything like what Ezra had with his hssiss. But it seemed that he would have to, to know what she wanted from him. He reached out to her, mind to mind. 

He fell into her. She was vast and hungry and achingly familiar, full of thirst and yearning. She was a deep black pit of cold slime, pungent with decay. She was flame devouring flesh. Luke was battered by image after image, a confusion of emotions none of them his own... but he stood firm. He knew who he was, even if he had doubted that sometimes of late. The knowledge was still within him, written into his bones, into his soul. He went deeper, looking for the heart of what the dragon was in return. 

And then he understood, and in understanding realised that this had to be a dream, a vision. It was as Alkamar had told him. Whatever the Dark Side had once been long ago, good or evil or just a power that existed for anyone to use how they wanted, now it was tainted, turned and twisted, made into an abomination by generations of Sith and those like them. 

And he had willingly stepped inside the mind of some part of it. He was just lucky that this piece of Bogan, manifestation or whatever else it might be, didn't want to devour him at present. Perhaps the dragon wasn't even the Dark Side itself but just an image of it shown to him by other parts of the Force – he didn't know and questions like that were starting to go into realms of philosophy alien to him. Luke drew back, extricating himself carefully. The krayt dragon was still watching him, in the dream-temple. She still had other things she wanted to show him – but Luke didn't think he could take much more tonight. He made a conscious decision... and woke up. 

\----

**1 ABY – _Home One,_ undisclosed location**

New emergencies and urgent business might come and go, but the daily running of the Alliance never stopped. Whilst they were waiting for Vader's datachip to be thoroughly vetted, Mon spent the time well by getting on with the many other matters which currently required her attention. Workload had only mounted as the Rebellion moved from strength to strength, but at least with more beings joining them every day she now had some capable people that she could delegate to. In uncertain times like these, Intelligence was more important than ever. 

Mon finished reading through another briefing, this one about the sudden disappearance of the ISD- _Chimaera_ from its previous posting menacing the innocent civilians of Carida. She had a certain suspicion as to where it might have gone. To join Vader. 

For her own part, she had already made up her mind on the subject, and although it was always possible that Vader might insist on some demand that would be so intolerable that she would change that decision, she didn't find it likely. Mon Mothma had been an idealist once, when she was no more than the Senator for Chandrilla and the Bormea Sector, when the Republic still lived. Twenty years of resistance to tyranny had changed that, particularly given the work she had been doing for all that time. She could compromise, she could make sacrifices, she could do whatever she had to do in order to _win._

And it was not even as though they would have to work _with_ Vader. Merely allow him to exist, and in all probability to refrain from attacking his forces and interests as he would refrain from attacking them. A pact of non-aggression, at least until the Emperor was dead. After that... Emperor Vader was not a sight Mon _wanted_ to see, but... She remembered him from her time in the Senate, when he wasn't away committing atrocities at Palpatine's command. Vader was not a man with a head for politics, and indeed would rather remove those of anyone who disagreed with him. Nor would he be willing to delegate the scheming, the compromising, the _work_ of governing to someone more suited for it. The Empire would tear itself to shreds in civil war and then Vader would run what remained of it into the ground when it failed to work in the same way as the military he was more used to. 

So yes, Mon was more than willing not to interfere. 

Her comm-link chimed. Vader's conditions were ready for them to read – and there had been no virus or malware of any kind hidden away in the data. Good; it meant this offer was genuine and serious. She rose, locking the datapad she had been reading from, and headed back to High Command's meeting room. Dodonna and Rieekan were already there, waiting for her before they opened the datafile. 

“Gentlemen,” she said. “Shall we begin?”

A copy of the demands had been loaded onto three separate datapads, allowing them to read them individually and even take notes if they wanted. Mon read carefully. Vader's skill lay in martial ability rather than words, so she didn't fear that he might be sneaking in something to their disadvantage, but perhaps he might have tripped himself up and given the Alliance an opening that they could take advantage of. 

At first it was merely what she had expected. Vader's fleet to be recognised as its own entity under his command, neither side to attack the other unless fired upon first, ident codes to be transmitted between them regularly to ensure no unfortunate mistakes were made... that was something Mon would allow some of, but she was not willing to hand Vader the keys to their destruction by letting him know the full size and nature of their forces. Her spies and strike teams would remain secret – but if they did come to Vader's attention then it would only be because their missions had already failed. 

Mon noted that Vader also wanted provisions to exist for the possibility of working together more closely, including the potential for resupply and repair. Of course at present Vader had no planets or shipyards he could rely on, although that was sure to swiftly change once news of this got out. But at present the Alliance had a significant advantage here – they had control of the orbital yards around Mon Cala. What, she wondered, might Vader pay to use them right now? 

But that was a question for future negotiations. She kept reading. Vader had included some of his intentions for an Empire under his hands, perhaps in the thought that they might endear the Rebellion to him given how clearly they seemed to be selected for just that. Ending Imperial slavery of non-humans. Reforming the Navy to a true meritocracy. Taking power away from the corrupt Moffs and returning it to the Emperor under a strong centralised leadership – oh, Mon would love to see him try, if only so she could laugh when the Moffs fought back. The Empire was not something that could be changed from within. Reform was impossible within Palpaitne's poisonous framework, and the only option was to tear it all down and rebuild anew. The Imperial Moffs were poor substitutes for democratically elected Senators and no more than warlords of their own sector fiefs – they would never bow to Vader's ideas when they ran so counter to their interests. But nor could Vader run the Empire without them. It all came back to delegation again. One person could not rule a galaxy on their own. 

Then... she paused. Read the sentence again, certain that somehow she had misunderstood on the first pass. But no, the words didn't change, and there was no mistaking their meaning. 'Luke Skywalker, my son and heir, will take the Imperial Throne as Emperor.' 

What? And how? Mon struggled to make sense of it. She had been operating under the assumption that Vader was doing this for power – as Leia had theorised – if only because no other credible motive had presented itself, but now she had to discard that theory entirely. She had asked herself what had happened of late in the galaxy that might have shifted his steadfast loyalty to the Emperor – and she had given herself the answer; the emergence of Luke Skywalker onto the galactic stage. So it was family. Did that make sense? Perhaps – if Skywalker had defied the Jedi for Padmé, then he might defy a second master for his son. Yet for all that Mon had seen of Luke himself, he was entirely committed to the cause of the Alliance. The Empire had killed his family on Tatooine, after all, and they had killed... except they _hadn't_ killed his father. Yet Mon remembered how sure Luke had been about that, and the fire it had stoked inside him. Revenge was hardly a foreign motivation in the Alliance, so she had thought little of it at the time but now... 

Luke must know who Vader really was. If Vader wanted to hand him the galaxy that much seemed obvious. But how had he reacted? Leia had not mentioned the boy at all during her message to them, but it wasn't exactly a secret that she cared for him. What might she have omitted to protect him? What if this Skywalker was like his father, and family mattered more to him than ideals? He could hardly be made Emperor without his knowledge or consent! Had he turned against them? Did _he_ now desire power, had Vader convinced him... or had the 'Dark Side', whatever that was or truly meant? 

Mon's confidence that Vader would only end up destroying the Empire from within was shaken. She had no idea what Luke would be like as a politician – as far as she knew he had no particular knowledge of it. He hadn't been brought up in it like Mon had, or like Leia had. But if in his character he was anything like his mother, had her same charisma... 

Beside her Rieekan swore. 

“You're reached that part then,” Mon said. 

“What in the Corellian hells is going on in Vader's head?” Rieekan said. “An inexperienced young man barely out of his teens... Dodonna, you commanded the boy at the battle of Yavin. Did he strike you as a traitor?”

“Hmmm?” Dodonna said, scrolling down to see what they had gotten so excited about and then going pale. “Skywalker? Him? I can't imagine it!”

“And yet we must look at the evidence,” Mon said, in chill tones. “This one line leaves little other interpretation but that Luke Skywalker, for all he destroyed the Death Star, is no longer aligned with us. Perhaps the jogan fruit does not fall far from the tree.” She could see they all took her meaning. 

“Still,” Dodonna said doubtfully, “Luke never gave us any reason to doubt him before now.”

“ _That_ was when he believed his family dead,” Mon said. “Now... I imagine Emperor Skywalker has a nice ring to it.”

“So what then?” Rieekan asked her. “Do you think we should throw this whole treaty away because of it? At the end of the day, if there's an Emperor around in the galaxy we'll still be committed to deposing them.”

Mon nodded. “You're correct General, and I still agree with you that it serves our interests better to agree to this pact. It changes nothing but our expectations of what Vader hopes to achieve. But I do wonder if Leia knew anything about this...” 

“You believe she's protecting him?” Dodonna asked. 

“Perhaps.” Mon shrugged. “We can ask her when we hear from her again. Meanwhile, are we all agreed on Vader's more relevant demands?”

The other two nodded. 

“Although I can't say the rest of our military will be as eager as we are,” Rieekan added. “Still, what's the other option? Just go on as we have been – our chances might be improved of late but even now I wouldn't call them _good_.”

“We can bring people around to this, especially once they see the advantages for themselves,” Mon replied. “So. Now we wait.”

\----

**1 ABY – SSD _Executor_ , Arkanis system, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

Luke had made a promise to Ezra, and he didn't mean to forget it. He had been putting off speaking to Leia and Han for far too long; if this was the extra push he needed then so be it. The rebels were still being held in the bridge-tower, despite their escape attempt – and Luke _had_ found out about that eventually if only via accidental eavesdropping rather than anyone actually _telling_ him. So it was in deference to Vader's feelings, or to his own, that they were still being kept in relative comfort. Besides, there was no shortage of spare rooms in a ship this size.

Luke found out the specific location from Admiral Piett. It was the morning after he had woken up from that strange dream or Force vision, and he still hadn't puzzled that mess out entirely yet. He still had the holocron though, and he intended to ask Alkamar about it. Something had seemed very... Arkanii, for lack of a better word, about all of it. The Arkanii were also a subject he wanted to discuss with Leia, although who knew if she would believe him. 

There were guards at the far end of the corridor leading to the rebels. Luke hadn't been sure if they had gotten the message about obeying him but he needn't have worried. Even if he wasn't wearing a uniform it seemed he was recognisable as that person who was always following Lord Vader around and that was practically the same thing as being an officer. They stood aside without him even having to say anything, or even get out the code cylinder the newly-promoted Admiral had given him after that meeting. 

Luke knocked on the door out of habit before realising how foolish he was being. His code cylinder opened the door lock and he stepped inside, ducking his head, not quite wanting to look up and see... his friends looking at him in disgust, probably. Instead he was surprised to feel a hand falling onto his shoulder in a friendly kind of way. It was Han. 

“You're looking rough kid,” he said. “Imps treating you alright?” 

“I think I should be the one asking that question,” Luke said. Han's reaction gave him the courage to look around the room. Leia was a warm weight in the Force, so he didn't give too much credence to the way she was standing against the far wall with her arms folded across her chest and her face set in stone, but everyone else was looking at him warily. Distrust laced the air like a sharp and bitter smell. 

The room itself looked like it had been meant for junior officers; it had bunks barracks-style, but also a little more space beside each bed for personal belonging. Not that there were any now. Still, it was better than a cell, or the single-person room the Rebels had been confined to at first. 

“We have been treated better than any of us expected,” Captain Syndulla said, looking unfriendly. “I can't help waiting for the moment when that all changes.”

Chewie roared; whatever he said made Han wince a little. “So Luke, are you here to give us some good news?” he asked. 

“Not... exactly,” Luke said. “I came for a few reasons – one of them is because Ezra asked me to.” He didn't miss how all of the members of Spectre reacted to that – at least all save Captain Rex, who seemed better at hiding his emotions. Anger, pain... he'd known to expect it by what Ezra had told him, and it wasn't as though he didn't understand _why_ , but he too wished things could be different. That somehow these people who had once been as close as family could find some way to come together again. “He wanted me to make sure that you were all okay.”

“What does he even want?” Hera asked sharply. “Is it just to cause us pain? Torture us by reminding us of the person he _used_ to be? That is what Dark Siders do, isn't it?”

Luke shook his head. “That isn't what he wants at all,” he said. “I know what he has done to hurt you and I'm not asking for you to forgive something you can't forgive. It's just that he did it for reasons he thought would protect you, not because it was something he wanted.”

“He's an Inquisitor,” Zeb snarled, voice unsteady with suppressed emotion. “He's not Ezra and hasn't been for a long time.”

Hera nodded. “It's cruelty to try and make us believe otherwise. I'm no Force-user but I know that much.”

“I used to believe that too,” Luke said. “Now I've seen for myself that it isn't true. Ezra is still Ezra. My father is still Anakin Skywalker somewhere under the weight of the last twenty years. I've touched the Dark Side briefly, and I'm still me – Leia can tell you that much.”

“Isn't that worse though?” Sabine said. She too had her arms wrapped around herself, tight enough to be a hug. “Then it means Ezra did... all of that.”

“Don't believe anything he says,” Hera said coldly. 

“But I think he's right!” Sabine replied. “Ezra looked the same, he treated us like... _us_ not like everyone else that was with us. We're still alive aren't we?” 

“Because he's toying with us,” Hera said. 

Sabine looked over at Leia. “You're the Jedi here,” she said. “What do you think?”

“I think my brother has a point,” Leia said, speaking slowly and cautiously. “That it is _possible_ that someone could fight off what the Dark is meant to do to them. But I never knew your friend before. Only you can decide what he is now, and what that means to you.”

“This Force stuff again,” Han said, half under his breath. “The galaxy wouldn't be half as complicated a place without it.”

“You've said your piece on behalf of the Inquisitor,” Hera told him. “And since he wants to know, you can tell him that we're all holding up just _fine._ Now was there anything else or...”

“You deserve to know what's been going on,” Luke said quickly. “Although I'm sure Leia has told you the bit of it she's seen. So... yes, we're acting in a coup against the Emperor and we're going to take him down. We've got help too – about a score of Star Destroyers who want a better galaxy than this one. Vader's going to announce to the whole Empire soon enough what we're doing, plus hopefully we'll hear back from the Alliance and then...” He shrugged. “War, I suppose.”

“And where do we fit in with all this?” Rex asked. He was worried, Luke realised, and so was Leia. Worried about... him, actually. Which was nice, but if anything he was safer with his father than he had been running missions with the Alliance where the odds had been so greatly against them. 

“I still hope you'll be released,” Luke said. “Once we have this pact with the Alliance...”

“Are we just bargaining chips to you?” Hera demanded. 

“No, of course not,” Luke said. 

“High Command are smarter than that anyway,” Leia said. “They're hardly going to agree to something this wide-ranging just to rescue a few of their agents. But you just want to use it as a pretext Luke, isn't that right?”

Luke nodded. 

“And it won't apply to me.” Leia was angry, he could sense it through the Force and their connection. It had been growing ever since their joint meditation and he could recognise it now for what it was – the same kind of link he had with his father. Whether it was a product of being able to use the Force or of being related he didn't know, but it was comforting all the same to always know where the two of them were and have an idea of how they were feeling. “He can't keep me locked away forever,” Leia continued. “Does Vader expect my feelings to soften simply because I have nowhere else to go?”

“I don't know,” was all the answer Luke could give to that, inadequate as it was. “I'm sorry Leia.”

In the silence that stretched out, he tried to gather his thoughts. There was still one more topic he had come here to speak about. 

“There was another thing,” he said. “I wanted to tell you about what I've been learning since Vrogas Vas, about the Jedi, the Sith, the Force itself.”

“You mean whatever Vader has been filling your head with?” Leia asked. “I'll pass.”

“No,” Luke insisted. “Not that. We found something in the old temple; a holocron.” Leia simply frowned at him, but he was surprised to see recognition from the Spectre crew. It made sense from Rex who had known the old Jedi, but where had the others seen a holocron? Perhaps Kanan, Ezra's old master, had had one. “It was made by a group of Force-sensitives who weren't Jedi or Sith. They were called the Arkanii.”

“Like the sector?” Leia asked, curiosity getting the better of her. “The planet?” 

Luke nodded. He reached into his belt pocket and drew the holocron out for them all to see – although he wasn't going to open it. Drawing on the Dark Side with Leia around would _not_ give off the right impression. “Exactly. Let me explain.”


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vader gets a new arm, Luke explores another vision, and High Command gives their answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for fairly graphic description of a surgical procedure.

**1 ABY – SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis system, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

In his initial conversation with Governor Zorr, Vader had mentioned his intentions to co-opt the planet's resources and fabrication facilities, although of course he had not said for what. This had not raised any objections. Given the necessity of waiting for Hux's replacement at Arkanis Academy to be brought up to speed on the many and varied secrets Operations Harvester and Unity entailed, he intend to make use of the enforced down-time well. The plans for his new cybernetic limbs were all there in his head; all that remained was to bring them forth into existence. 

Then, of course, there was the matter of the operations to attach them. In this, Vader had to acknowledge himself a novice – and so he had enlisted Kix's help. Not that he had needed to do more than ask. The clone had jumped at the opportunity. It was admittedly born of more needless concern, in much the same vein as his continued and pointed comments about bacta baths. Vader had continued to refuse. In the weeks and months to come their now-limited supply of bacta would be needed for far more appropriate situations. 

The schematics for the individual components had been sent to a military fabricator company on-planet several days before, marked as a top priority order – although the penalties for attempting to cut corners in their production had been most firmly emphasised. However they were now complete, and all that remained was to assemble them. That would fall to his own hands – he would trust no-one else's. 

Vader had taken over a section of the primary medbay for the work. Once all of the pieces of the cybernetics were laid out before him and he began to set to the task it was easy to fall into an almost meditative trance of concentration. Everything had to be perfect. He would accept nothing less. Even Kix's gaze on him, watching the procedure, rapidly faded into the background. Wires, gears, diodes, circuitry, delicate hydraulics... with care everything began to come together. After some time – and he would not have been able to say how long – he felt a hand on his shoulder. 

“It's been hours sir,” Kix told him, breaking the spell of his concentration. “Take a break. Eat something.”

Vader sat back to regard his work. The first – an arm to replace the one he had long ago lost to Dooku – was almost complete. A few minor adjustments would be required, then calibrations of the neural network which would require it to actually be attached to his body, and then the outer shell of durasteel could be slotted into place over it all. It had struck him at one point in the design process that if all possibilities were open to him the covering should be made of cortosis or beskar, but gaining access to either of those materials at present was impossible. However if the opportunity presented itself in the future... 

“Very well,” he told Kix. “When I return you should be prepared to install this.”

Kix nodded, his expression serious. “You realise that after stripping out the old neural connectors and putting in new ones it's still going to take some time to heal up without a proper dip in bacta...”

“We have already discussed this Kix,” Vader said, in a warning tone. 

“It's going to be really kriffing painful...”

“And it will pass.” He would say nothing more on the subject. Kix had been right at least that he should eat in order to maintain his concentration, and that meant returning to the hyperbaric chamber. More than enough time for Kix to make his own preparations. Vader left the medbay before the medic could try any other arguments on him. 

He returned a half-hour later to find Kix laying out his surgical tools next to the operating table which had been raised up from the medbay floor, already gloved and gowned in sterile materials. Vader began stripping the bodysuit from his right arm, baring the skeletal metal of the cybernetic and its join with his flesh high up his arm. The scar tissue around the area had built up over the years – the metal always heated uncomfortably after exposure to lightning – but the neural connections buried deep within were still functional. They were designed to resist external electric interference, albeit to increase their sensitivity to biological current rather because the manufacturer expected their users to be exposed to lightning with regularity.

Kix sighed. “Shall we begin then my lord?” he said. 

Vader nodded, and climbed up onto the table. It was lying at an angle, an incline of about forty-five degrees with an attachment at the side – this one parallel with the floor – for him to rest his arm on while Kix worked. The medic began by running a steriliser over the joint between metal and flesh, then reached for the connection points that would allow the cybernetic to disengage from its internal mount. With heavy, simultaneous clicks, mechanisms shifted and the arm came free. Kix slid it towards himself slightly, mindful of its weight, and felt for the neural wiring which was still attached. As each was unclipped, Vader gradually lost sensation. The cybernetic became no more than dead metal – and then it was gone completely. 

With care, Kix hefted the arm up and deposited in a clear space on his equipment table. “Now we get to the part that's going to hurt sir,” he said. “Are you sure...?”

“Yes.” 

Kix sighed. Vader could have explained himself further – but he would not. In truth he felt... unsettled whenever he considered the idea of anaesthesia, of drugs in general. Thinking about it made him remember. There had been drugs of some kind, after Mustafar. When the rest of his limbs had been replaced. When he had been put into the armour. But if they had been intended to take away the pain they had not worked – he had been held pinned in their chemical grasp, unable to move, to flinch away from what had been done to him. And his thoughts had been made slick as oil, sliding out of his grasp at every turn. Even the Force had been denied him; without the concentration to command it or the knowledge to feed it the pain that wracked through him like nothing he had ever felt, it had remained an inchoate blanket of darkness. 

“Okay,” Kix said, picking up the laser scalpel and a cautery pen. “I'm going to start.”

He bent to the task with great concentration, shaving away scar tissue to free the old neural ports and find their connections to the organic nerves deeper in. Each cut was a flare of pain followed by a deeper ache – but nothing he could not bare. It was only when they reached fresh tissue not dulled by the scarring that the pain sharpened, began to bite. It forced a grunt from behind clenched teeth – Kix stopped what he was doing immediately.

“Lord Vader?” he said. His worry and concern were clear in the Force, slightly sickening to the Dark Side which now lay heavy all around them. 

“Continue,” Vader told the clone. The pain was irrelevant, the pain was nothing. It was merely fuel for his power, and the Dark was happy to take it. 

Kix hesitated, but did as he was commanded. Before long he drew the first of the old neural ports free, a small complicated mechanism of dark metal obscured by scraps of flesh and slick with blood. He dropped it into a dish and went back for the next. Vader watched the slender tools work their way back inside the stump of his arm dispassionately. He did not find himself unsettled by the sight. He thought of his body now like he would a ship – as a vessel and little more. Something that required regular maintenance, refuelling, repairs... to be squeamish about it would like being squeamish about delving into the guts of his TIE-Advance. 

Finally three ports sat in a metal dish on Kix's instrument table. Kix wiped the open wounds with a bacta swab, then began the work of inserting the new neural ports. Each device expanded slightly once it was placed, binding itself to the tissue around it and to the nerve itself deeper within. Each one was a bright sharp point burrowed inside his flesh – foreign at first, but as he healed around them that sensation would pass. 

“Just the calibrations for now,” Kix said. “Those things need a few days of adjustment before they'll be good for constant use.” 

Vader nodded. He knew this, of course, but equally he understood why the medic was repeating it. Kix did not trust him not to overextend himself. Foolishness – Vader knew his own limits, had taken great pains under his former master's direction to map them out. He would not do himself damage that could not be fixed unless there was no other choice – and although he could not afford to be out of commission at this present delicate point in time there was nothing here which required him to be in peak fighting condition. 

“Okay,” Kix said, bringing the new arm into position and easing it into place. The new neural links used wireless short-distance transmission and he felt it as they began picking up sensation. It felt... new. Unfamiliar. The arm was his but alien, different from what came before. Kix plugged a datapad into a port somewhere around the elbow and began to make adjustments. This took some time, but eventually Vader was satisfied with it. 

“Powering down for now,” Kix said. The cybernetic went limp and locked into place in a posture that should look natural. Vader could still move it if he wished through the Force, but the sensation and motor functions had been turned off. 

“Well done,” Vader said, rising from the operating table and beginning to work his bodysuit on over the dead limb. “We will proceed with the second arm once this one is ready for continuous use.”

Kix sighed. 

“As you wish sir.”

\----

Showing Leia the holocron had gone about as well as Luke could have expected. It would have been easier for her to believe what he was saying if he had opened it, if only it didn't take the Dark to do so. Instead he had just spoken, explained Alkamar's teachings about the Force as something far greater than the duality they had been told about, that the Dark Side was something that had been corrupted by sentient creatures long ago. That the Jedi had been going down a dangerous road with what they had the potential to do to the Light. He explained his intentions to go his own way, explore other ways of using the Force. 

Leia had not approved, nor really _believed_ him, but she accepted that _he_ believed it. She thought it was dangerous, that Alkamar was dangerous. Luke was okay with that. It had been how he'd thought she would react. And at least she had heard him out. He would just have to show her results rather than only words – but of course that wouldn't be for a long time to come. He was only an apprentice in all this, after all. 

He had gone to try and find his father after that, only to be told that he was in the medbay with Kix. Luke hadn't felt anything along their connection but he realised on further probing that this was because it was locked down again. He _had_ to become better at noticing when that happened – not that he _wanted_ to feel his father's pain or pry into things that he would rather hide, but he couldn't try and help if he didn't know that he needed to. He could go and update Ezra he supposed, but it might be better to give him a little more time to come to terms with the information Luke had sprung on him last time. 

Meditation it was then, and he really did need it. Just when he thought he had accepted the twists and turns his life had been taking of late another one came along to put him off balance. Tatooine had never been like this – things on the farm had been difficult but he had always known what to expect. It hadn't prepared him for the galaxy, for the Empire, for the Rebellion, for his father... 

Luke went back to his quarters and made himself comfortable on the bed, leaning back against the wall and crossing his legs underneath him. He shut his eyes and focused on his breathing, on the air moving in and out of his body, then turned his attention inwards towards his feelings. This was about self-knowledge, about understanding, as Alkamar had taught him. Emotions were the most dangerous when they were little understood. Then they could take you by surprise, put you off balance, make you act without thinking – and then you would end up taking the route that _seemed_ the easiest – the path to the Dark Side. 

He knew where he stood. He knew what he cared about. His family – Vader and Leia. The people of the galaxy, humans and aliens, everyone under the yoke of the Empire's rule. He was doing the right thing, he truly believed that. Things would be better with Sidious dead. He would manage to bring his father around, there would be plenty of time to convince him because this war wasn't going to be swift... 

The Alliance would agree not to work against them, he was sure of it, because it only made sense. And then perhaps there would be space for the Imps to really get to see what the Alliance was fighting for. The Captains in that meeting hadn't approved of the Death Star, or what it had done to Alderaan. They were reasonable. So surely they would understand if it was only explained to them, if they had a chance to _see_ without the Emperor's propaganda being shoved at them at every opportunity... Things could be better, and then he could show Leia that he hadn't abandoned everything important. 

The Force was tugging at him, Luke realised all of a sudden. His meditation had brought it to him so that it covered the room in a thick heavy blanket, something not entirely Dark or Light, something he didn't really understand and had no name for. Perhaps it was the Force as Alkamar knew it, but he hadn't yet learned enough to say so with any surety. 

What did it want? Because it was clear it wanted _something_. He wondered if it had something to do with the dream-vision from last night. The krayt dragon hadn't been finished with him, she'd had something to show him – and maybe this was just the continuation of that experience. If it was so important, then he needed to listen. Luke reached out. 

The world changed. He found himself in the temple again, his lightsaber at his side, the heavy columns rising up all around him, the dim moonlight glow of the three bowls in front of the statue a little way off. The vast bulk of the krayt dragon was curled up in front of it, nothing but a black shape in the darkness. Luke approached, and her head rose up at the sound of his footsteps. 

“I'm here,” Luke said. His voice bounced off the pillars and into the distance, a wave of soft echoes. “What is it you need me to see?”

The dragon got to her feet, moving much more fluidly than she had before. Luke followed her as she started to wind her way between the stone columns going... somewhere. Leaving the statue behind meant leaving the light as well, and Luke ended up taking a few steps at a jog so that he could catch up enough to place his hand on the dragon's flank as a guide. He didn't know if there would be any consequences of getting lost in this place, but that was not something he wanted to risk. The krayt dragon was warm under his palm – a low furnace heat that seemed much healthier than her previous chill. 

The room opened out, the pillars disappeared. There was a chill in the air, a cold bite that threatened to steal the breath from his lungs and made his skin prickle. The Force here wasn't like the Force in the real world, but even so he could sense they were walking towards something malevolent and cruel. Something truly of the Dark Side. 

And then he saw... a row of tubes like bacta tanks set against a durasteel wall, faint vague shapes floating within the cloudy liquid, too ill-defined to be made out. The scene was lit from above but no source of that light was visible, and the whole thing was curiously flat, as though Luke was looking at it through a vid screen. It wasn't _here,_ but somewhere else, real but far away. This was a window out into reality, into what was. Then a sound came from elsewhere in the darkness, the crackle of lightning and the buzz of lightsaber against lightsaber. Luke turned quickly, but he could see nothing but shadows. 

Then, gradually, the shadows took on form and life. It was a corrupted image, half a mirage wavering in the air like heat off a dune, but he could make out a battle. Two figures, one tall, one much shorter, fighting another in a hooded robe. The vision shimmered in and out of existence, each moment seeming to have no connection to the ones that came before. But finally a blow was struck that pierced the hooded person and sent it to its knees. A scream of rage roared through the space all around, as though from very far away, but no less powerful in the hate it held within it. Luke winced – the very sound seemed to grate across his nerves. 

“What is this?” he asked the krayt dragon. “Is it the future? The past?” The last time he had seen something like this it had been his mother and – he now assumed – his father, meeting for what must have been the last time on Mustafar. That had been unclear in the same sort of way, maybe because it had been a memory taken from Vader's head, not his or Ezra's. But a battle... that could have been anywhere, anyone. Except... 

Luke looked over at the tanks which still sat unchanged in their own little patch of light. One of the figures within... moved. Jerked. In response there was a metallic whirr and the fluid began to drain from the tube leaving the person within to sink down onto the floor of the enclosed space. Then the glass cylinder retracted upwards, letting a man climb unsteadily out, coughing and retching splashes of something that wasn't water or bacta onto the floor. 

Luke didn't recognise him – he was medium height, red-haired, pale and young. Yet there was something about him... something horrible. Something poisonous. The gleam in his ice-blue eyes?

The dragon hissed. Her tongue flickered out and she bared her fangs – although those were worn and broken, little more than stumps in the dragon's mouth. Luke reached for her with the Force, wary of dipping into her thoughts again except that it seemed to be the only way to communicate with her. 

_ENEMY._ Luke almost stumbled backwards at the strength of the word roared into his mind. Yet the krayt dragon didn't mean that this man was her own enemy. No, there had been a particular flavour behind it – _your_ enemy. Luke's. Which meant... He looked again at the rows of tubes, each with its own sleeping body floating within. The Emperor. Clones. Like the youngling on Arkanis Vader had been so worried about – and now Luke knew why. 

Except that body, in the scene which had now frozen and moved no longer, was much older than the toddler Brendol. So was that the future? Or was it even now a back-up plan that Sidious had put into place? Before, his intuition had told him that he was seeing something here and now, and he trusted that feeling. But the other thing he had seen, the battle – that _had_ to be the future. It had to be a battle he would eventually fight, alongside his father. Perhaps it had been so hard to see because the future wasn't fixed. Perhaps there were many other ways things could turn out and this was just one of many. 

The vision seemed to suggest that killing Sidious wouldn't be the end. That he had clones of himself, backups that would be awoken when he died. 

_MIND TO MIND._ It was the dragon speaking again, shouting herself into Luke's head. It took a moment before he understood what she meant. It wasn't simply another version of the Emperor that would wake up – it would be the Emperor himself. He would transfer himself into a new body, into a clean blank slate. Probably this had been his plan long before he came to know of Vader's intentions – Sidious was an old man, but he meant to rule the Empire for more than just one lifetime. 

They had to stop it. There had to be some way. Some way to prevent Sidious' mind from escaping, keeping him locked in his own body somehow. Luke knew that if he told his father he would say that they had to kill all the clones, but Luke could never agree to that. He might not know the clone troopers all that well but he could plainly see how each were distinct individuals, distinct _people._ The Emperor's clones didn't deserve to die just because of their genetics, or because something evil might take them over – something which Luke was sure would be as good as killing them anyway. Sidious wouldn't leave anything left of the original mind behind. 

Luke had never believed people were born evil. It was something they came to later in life. If these clones could only be given a chance... 

“Thank you for showing me this,” he told the krayt dragon. “For warning me. I'll make sure this doesn't happen.”

The dragon nodded, and then Luke was rising out of the meditative trance he had been in. There was a lot to think about. 

\----

Leia no longer knew _what_ to think about her brother's actions anymore. She had only half-believed him when he claimed that Vader hadn't pushed him to learn about the Dark Side, but whatever she might have thought the truth to be it certainly wasn't this wild nonsense about a long-lost group of Force-sensitives and their outlandish ideas about the Force. The holocron had looked real enough, although she had never actually seen a real one in person. The closest she'd come was on Nar Shaddaa and there hadn't exactly been time to open any of the many cubes she had glimpsed in passing. Still she knew what they were. Ahsoka had told her about them. Jedi ones were cubes of blue crystal and metal circuitry – but the Sith could make them too. 

This one had looked more Jedi that how Ahsoka had described a Sith holocron, but that was no guarantee. And Luke hadn't opened it in front of her which made her wonder. She wouldn't trust the words of a wraith of unknown provenance, not without some serious fact-checking, but it seemed Luke was more trusting. What if this was some kind of Sith trick? A roundabout, subtle way of leading someone astray? 

Leia didn't like it. She didn't like that Luke seemed to believe it. But she hadn't managed to convince her brother of _anything_ since coming on board _Executor._ She wasn't expecting that to change anytime soon. 

It was frustrating. _Everything_ was frustrating. She was either going to explode before long, or become very good at meditating to 'release emotions into the Force', as Ahsoka had taught her to do. 

Leia was torn from her thoughts by the sound of the door sliding open. Another squad of stormtroopers entered, gesturing to her with their blasters. “You there Organa,” one ordered. “And the droid. You're to come with us.” This all seemed very familiar. Leia had a good idea about where they might be going – Vader wanted to hear the Alliance's answer. She stood up, making no effort to hurry. 

“Hey,” Han whispered to her as she passed. “Don't let those Imp bastards get to you, alright. We're with you.” 

Leia smiled at him, brief and quick before the troopers ushered her out. They gave Chopper and her a wide margin as they marched them through the corridors of the ship, not seeming to want to come too close. There was fear in their minds, she sensed. They were afraid of _her,_ of what she was capable of... but of the astromech as well, for some reason. Hera had mentioned their droid could be vicious, but she had to wonder what he might have done to his guards the last time. 

The room she was brought to was much like the one from before, albeit a little larger. And there was one more, rather more important, difference. Vader was here. Vader and the Imp officer, Piett. Leia grit her teeth, angry words clustering on her tongue just waiting to be let free. She wouldn't speak them though. She was better than this. Than _him_. 

Vader nodded to her. She couldn't get a read on him, on what he was thinking. All that she could pick up was the shroud of the Dark Side and – for some reason – the noise of hurricane winds. 

“Your accommodations are satisfactory?” Vader asked her, and Leia had to take a moment to get her head around the banality of the question. 

“A wonderful prison,” she replied, glaring. “Let's get this over with.”

“As you wish,” Vader replied. He gestured to the communications terminal and the seat in front of it. Leia realised there was only the one – presumably Vader meant to loom behind her like some dark spectre as a power play. It wouldn't work – she wouldn't allow it to affect her. At least, that's what she thought until she sat down, and then the image came to her in a sharp flash of bitter memory and pain – the bridge of the Death Star, Tarkin staring down at the small bright jewel of Alderaan in the black velvet of space, Vader at her back close enough to make the hairs on her spine prickle. She took a deep breath. She wasn't there. She was in a chair, not standing. Tarkin was dead – this anxious Captain was nothing like him. The Death Star was gone. 

She had control of herself again. Leia beckoned Chopper forwards, letting him input the appropriate channel frequency before she appended her own codes onto it. The wait for the call to go through was even less this time. Obviously they had been anticipating this, even if it had to be coming sooner than might have been predicted. 

The faces of High Command appeared on the large vidscreen in front of them. Of the three, only Mon managed to remain entirely placid at the sight of Vader. Admittedly she had more call for a good sabbac-face than the others. 

“Darth Vader,” Mon said. “You have not given us much time to deliberate your proposal.”

“The question is simple,” Vader replied. “And the answer obvious.”

Mon smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. Leia wasn't surprised – she wasn't exactly impressed with Vader's arrogance either. “You are correct that this agreement is clearly to the Alliance's advantage as well as your own,” she said, then continued with a certain degree of sarcasm. “However I believe you permitted us questions?”

Vader inclined his head. 

“There is one point that we were all rather surprised about,” Mon said. It appeared that High Command had nominated her as their spokeswoman in this matter, which made sense. Mon Mothma was the only one of the three with real diplomatic experience – and she had worked with Vader before in the Senate when necessary. If any of those sorts of interactions could really be termed 'working'. “It's about Luke. Your son.”

Leia tensed. Something – perhaps a premonition in the Force – told her she wasn't going to like what came next. 

“ _He_ is going to be the Emperor?” 

Leia's mind went blank. _What? Luke_ was... 

The betrayal of it hit her like a knife under the ribs. A sudden shock of pain driving out breath. Even her heart felt like it had skipped a beat. Then came denial – it wasn't true, or it was a misunderstanding. Luke might have changed in his captivity but he could never have changed _that much._

“Correct,” Vader said. Even denial had to waver in the face of that deep baritone. Out of instinct, wanting the truth, Leia reached out to him through the Force. For a moment there was something, a mixture of emotions that would have taken time to parse out, but then it was covered again by the storm-wind roar. But... he wasn't the only person in the room, and Piett did _not_ know how to shield his mind. She could feel him clearly, and he was surprised. Surprised and more than a little frightened. This was news to him too. 

“You must admit the prospect is... unusual,” Mon said. She had a shrewd, watchful look about her, Leia thought distantly. She knew what Mon Mothma looked like when she was trying to bait someone into a trap. 

Vader's anger did not hide. The Dark Side bristled around him, iron filings turning in a magnetic field to stand up straight. “My son is more than worthy of the role,” he said. “He will rule – your Alliance should be thankful of that. He is far more merciful than I.”

“And where will you stand in this new Empire?” Mon asked. 

“Doing whatever is necessary,” Vader replied – the threat was clear enough. 

Mon was smiling faintly. “It doesn't affect our agreement to this treaty of yours anyway,” she said. “But it is good for us to have some clarity on matters which must be well known to your forces.”

Leia felt Piett's flinch, if only on the inside of his head. He hadn't known, and the officer seemed to trail Vader around like his pet. Why let this secret out to High Command before the Imps? That made no sense. 

A better question – did _Luke_ even know about this? She had assumed he must, but hadn't he said at their last meeting that Vader still refused to tell him of his plans – what if this was more of the same? Still, how could Vader say something like this and just... assume Luke would go along with it? What did he know that they didn't? Did he expect Luke to have fallen to the Dark Side by then, becoming all too eager for power? 

She would get no answers here, not from Vader or his Imperials. There was only one person she could ask, and that was Luke himself. And that meant doing it through the Force – this couldn't wait until the next time he happened to visit. 

Leia acted on autopilot for the rest of her time in that room, while High Command transmitted their signed copies of this agreement and exchanged barbed pleasantries, and afterwards as she was lead back to her cell. Han, Chewie and Specter looked at her expectantly as she entered, but she brushed aside their queries, sitting down against the wall to meditate. She was going to talk to her brother. Now.


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke finally learns the truth, if not in the way he might have preferred, Ezra seeks proof of what Luke has told him, and Vader can no longer avoid answering his son's questions.

**1 ABY – SSD _Executor,_ Arkanis system, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

Luke was beginning to think his father was avoiding him. Admittedly the second vision from the Force had seemed to take up much more time in the real world than he would have thought from how it had felt whilst inside of it, and his father couldn't have been feeling in the mood for talking after his surgery. However even the day after that Luke hadn't been able to get a hold of him for reasons that were not entirely clear, and now? Now he was apparently in a holo-meeting with Alliance Command and couldn't be disturbed either. 

Alright it was a valid excuse, but Luke was starting to get annoyed and he _needed_ to talk to Vader. The vision had been very clear about what the Emperor was capable of and there had to be some way of stopping him. Any sort of eventual confrontation would be pointless if Sidious could simply move on to a new body and start terrorising the galaxy all over again. He could only hope his father might have heard of this technique and know a way to block it somehow, And there were other things he needed to ask him about. This long-promised conversation about his plans, for one. The coming civil war in general. 

Was a few hours of his time really so much to ask right now? Or was there some other reason? Something that he ought to be worried about. 

Luke had just about given up for the day, returning to his own quarters with the intent to meditate when the Force hit him like an unstable dune slipping out from under his feet. He almost stumbled, but caught himself quickly. It was familiar – it was Leia. He sat down heavily on the bed and marshalled his thoughts against the turmoil of their connection. 

_Leia?,_ he asked. Something had to be wrong, but what?

_Luke._ Leia's mental voice was sharp with suspicion, with hurt. _Did you know?_

_Know what?_ Luke asked, dread settling in his stomach. This sounded... bad. 

_What Vader has planned for you._ Leia's thoughts were bouncing all over the place – some of it was seeping through the connection enough for Luke to tell. _About being the_ Emperor.

_What?_ It made no sense – but at least his surprise was plain for his sister to see. He could feel her calming down a little. 

_It was in the conditions Vader sent to High Command_ , Leia explained. _He doesn't want to be Emperor himself, he wants to make_ you _Emperor._

_But... why?_ It was about all Luke could come up with. He was thinking back as best he could over all of his conversations with his father on the topic, seeing if there had ever been any hints of something like... this. It was true that Vader had expected _some_ role in their new dictatorship from him – he had said they would rule as father and son, but that certainly made it sound like Vader would be the one in charge. Luke couldn't be Emperor. For one thing he didn't want to rule anything and certainly not an entire Empire, and for another it wasn't as if he'd be any good at it! He didn't know the first thing about politics and Vader had made no attempt to teach him either. 

_Who knows why Vader does anything anymore?_ Leia said with weary frustration. At least speaking mind to mind as they were, she seemed to believe him. As far as Luke was aware, it wasn't even possible to lie when communicating like this. _Maybe it really_ is _all about family... I don't know if I'm willing to believe that but what else is there other than power?_

_Well that, and I believe he really does want to do the right thing for the galaxy_ somewhere _under there,_ Luke said, a little hesitantly. _But I've told father I'm not going to take part in ruling anything so what makes him think I would ever agree to this?_

_Maybe you should ask_ him _that_ , Leia said. 

_I will!_ Luke replied, with a touch of irritation. Hadn't he just been trying to do that earlier? _Still, I can't believe he..._ A thought occurred to him. _Wait... if High Command knows about this then... does_ everyone? He was thinking about the Imperial officers, the Captains, newly-Admiral Piett.

_No, it was a surprise to that man as well,_ Leia told him, referring to Piett. He must have been in on the holocall and learned about it that way then. Not that _that_ made any sense either. Did his father just not trust these people yet with the truth of his plans? It wasn't the kind of surprise you could just spring on your supporters. Why would any of them want to follow someone like Luke himself – he might be Vader's son but they didn't know the first thing about him and had only just learned of his existence. 

Perhaps that was why though. Perhaps his father thought they needed to get to know him first. 

He should have _told_ him. Luke shouldn't be learning about it essentially fourth-hand; from Vader to the Alliance to Leia to himself. 

That settled it. His father wasn't going to get away with avoiding him any longer. Luke was going to speak to him, now, never mind the inconvenient time of day, and he wasn't going to let any excuses get in his way. 

\----

Ezra hadn't been able to get any real sleep after what Luke had told him. The thought of it just kept whirling around and around in his mind, digging needles of betrayal into his brain. Not even the comforting weight of the hssiss lying tangled up with him on the narrow cot bed helped much. He had trusted... _why_ had he trusted the Inquisitorius? Because they had told him, over and over again on Mustafar; 'We're not like them. Not like the Jedi. Look at the horrible things they did, the horrible things they believed. Listen to their holocrons, listen to them speak the truth, condemn themselves with their own words...' 

That _had_ been the truth. So it had been easy to believe that the other things they told him were true as well. Ezra hadn't thought he had any illusions about the ways in which the Inquisitorius was less than perfect, all the things about it he would change if he ever had the power. But he'd believed he was making a choice. An informed decision – even if the only other option was death that was still something the padawan he had once been might have gone for. The Dark Side was better than the Light because even if it was selfish, cruel, wild and at times uncontrolled... at least it didn't _lie_ to you. 

He'd been naive. As naive as believing in the Jedi. He was no better than them. _They_ were no better. 

Luke had told him not everyone in the Inquisitorius knew about the children. Even Lord Vader hadn't, apparently. In some ways that made him feel very slightly better. He couldn't have been gullible to have been taken in by the same lies that Darth Vader had, after all. And it meant he was on the right side of this coming conflict, not that he had ever been in any doubt about that – this whole _thing_ was the Emperor's fault. But it did make him wonder who else knew and who didn't. 

There were other Inquisitors on board _Executor._ Nothing was stopping him from simply... going and asking. 

He wasn't sleeping anyway. Ezra got up, untangling himself from the hssiss as they gradually roused too in a performance of lithe stretching and yawning mouths that showed off their sharp, deadly teeth. There was no complaint from them at being woken up – with all the turmoil Ezra was feeling and how closely their minds always nestled to his own he had to wonder if they had even been sleeping properly either. Leaping down from the cot the pair circled the room working warmth into their muscles while Ezra changed and got ready to leave. 

It was the early hours of third shift, deep into the artificially imposed night of the ship. The Imperial Navy ran on Imperial Centre Standard Time, twenty-four hour days organised into three shifts of eight hours, even if that didn't necessarily line up with the local times of whatever planet they happened to be nearest to. In space it hardly mattered. The lights had been dimmed and most of the people on board would be sleeping. Ezra wasn't stopped once on his journey to the brig. The Inquisitors might have sworn an oath, but they hadn't earned their way out of a cell and into a real room quite yet – although this _was_ the Navy, so in practical terms that only meant the bunks were slightly less comfortable and the surveillance more obtrusive. 

He _was_ asked his business when he got to the brig. The petty-officer looked at him suspiciously, wary of the hssiss. Ezra had the feeling he would like nothing better than to throw him in the cells next to his Siblings-in-Darkness. 

“I'm here to speak with the other Inquisitors,” he said, trying to make it sound as though this request was entirely reasonable. 

“In the middle of the night,” the officer stated, scowling. “On whose authority?”

“I'm an Inquisitor,” Ezra reminded him, as though the uniform didn't make this obvious. “That's usually all the authority we need.”

“For Darth Vader's personal prisoners?” The man grinned, in a very unfriendly way. “I don't think so.”

Ezra just didn't have the energy to deal with this. Or not diplomatically at least. He reached out with the Force – not a trick he had learned on Mustafar but from Kanan all those years ago – and whispered stillness and tranquillity into the officer's brain. A quiet lake, or perhaps the wide open grasslands of Lothal, only waiting the external action of the wind to cast ripples across the surface. 

“You will let me pass,” he said, weight in every word. The hssiss shifted uneasily by his side. This was of the Light – there was a way to do it with the Dark but Ezra had never been shown how. 

“I will let you pass,” the man repeated dreamily. 

“I have the proper authorisation to see the Inquisitors.”

“You have the proper authorisation to see the Inquisitors.”

Ezra pushed past and down to the cell-block corridor, leaving the petty-officer to come around in his own time. He wouldn't realise what had been done to him – people generally didn't. Now which cell did he want...? 

The Force told him that – he recognised the sense of another Inquisitor well enough. Not that he knew any of them well enough to tell them apart... ah. Here. They had been allowed separate cells now, rather than that single large group cell they had been shoved into the last time Ezra was down here. 

He could feel them through the walls, each one a familiar presence. Not because he knew any of them well, but just simply because those who could use the Force were so rare, stood out so much, that it was impossible to forget what any of them felt like after even a single meeting. 

He stopped in front of one particular cell and reached out to the Dark, feeling for the lock. It clicked open at his command – evidence enough that the Inquisitors were staying here on their best behaviour. If they had wanted to escape, they could have... but they wouldn't have made it far. 

“Well, look who it is,” the Zabrak sitting inside said as the door slid open, her yellow eyes opening and catching the light with a glint of metallic gold. The colour faded as she slipped out of her meditation and the Dark Side left her. “The Twelfth Brother, the little padawan. Who would have thought you had it in you?”

“Had what in me?” Ezra asked, trying to keep emotion out of his voice. You couldn't make friends on Mustafar. Friendship was a weakness. It was a weapon that could be used against you. Trust could get you killed. Fourth Sister wouldn't answer his questions out of the kindness of her heart, and if he gave her the hint of an opening she would take it and lash out at him. If she knew it would hurt him to confirm Luke's accusations then she would say it, regardless of the truth. He had to seem objective. It wasn't going to be easy. 

“Or perhaps you're simply good at being in the right place at the right time,” Fourth Sister continued, as though he hadn't spoken. “Cosying up to power. Lucky number Twelve.”

“It's not luck,” Ezra replied. “If it was just luck I wouldn't have _these._ ” He gestured to the hssiss, who slunk through the door behind him, winding their way into the small room and taking up places in the corners facing the Sister like watchful statues. 

Fourth Sister's eyes widened. For a long moment she was struck wordless, silent... but she recovered quickly. “All these wonderful advantages,” she said. “Your new _connections,_ standing at the heel of Vader and his new Apprentice... I have to wonder what you could possibly want with _me_.”

How to word this... “Just... confirmation of something I've been told,” Ezra said. “A question or two about Project Harvester.”

Fourth Sister rolled her eyes. “And here I was expecting something _interesting._ We're above Arkanis aren't we? What do you expect me to tell you that you can't find out on your own.” 

“It's about the children.” 

All this got him was a puzzled look. “What about them?” 

Stay objective. “The...stolen ones.”

Fourth Sister rolled her eyes. “You make it sound so _dramatic,_ ” she said. “Stolen, honestly. Taken, because they rightfully belong with us. Are you worried the supply is going to dry up now there's a war on? It was smart of Vader to come here before Lord Sidious could send word. Not everyone is going to respect the rites of succession – now if anyone tries to interfere there's this ship ready to glass them and everything else in a klick's radius around them.”

Ezra had almost stopped listening after the first few words. He hadn't expected such a... nonchalant confirmation. As though it was hardly a secret at all, as though it was something that everyone knew about and he had just been too stupid to ask. “What about their families?” he found himself asking, although what he really ought to be doing was simply... turning and getting out of here before his feelings got the better of him. 

Fourth snorted, with mocking amusement. “There's nothing so very special about family,” she said dismissively. “And they're young, it's not as though they'll even remember their gene-donors. Where they came from doesn't matter – it doesn't matter to any of us. We're Inquisitors. We're Force-users. The Empire is our family if we need one, which we _don't_.” She blinked, and then her eyes narrowed. “Or is it different for you, little padawan,” she crooned. “Was your Jedi Master your daddy? Did you cry when you killed him?”

“Go kriff yourself,” Ezra said, turning sharply and storming out of the cell. He was trembling all over, but his body felt a long way away. Luke hadn't lied to him. It was true, all of it. And now? He couldn't trust anything. Not himself, not the Inquisitorius, not the Empire... he had thought he knew them. Knew what they were capable of. He had chosen the lesser evil because at least he knew exactly what it was asking from him. It – the Empire and all it had built – might not be _good_ but that was something that could be changed, changed by people like him once the threat they had hardened themselves against was ended... 

Now it was as if he had fallen into deep water and he couldn't find the surface again. 

What could he even trust anymore?

Well. Luke Skywalker. Luke had told him the truth, even knowing it would hurt him. He wanted to make the galaxy a better place, and he had the power to do it working together with his father if only he would just _take_ the opportunities that were being handed to him. 

Ezra had already decided whose side he was on, but now he could say that he owed no allegiance, _nothing,_ to anything that had come before. Sidious and his servants would _pay_ for what they had done.

\----

**1 ABY – Imperial Shuttle _Nemesis_ , in hyperspace**

“Under cover.” Triple Zero said the two words slowly, as though talking about an unfamiliar concept. “You mean wandering around the place scant feet from fleshy meatbags full of all that glorious, glorious blood and unable to do anything about it. For how long?”

“You've done this before, stop pretending you haven't,” Aphra told the droid. 

“Such delayed gratification doesn't make it any better when we're finally permitted to have our fun,” Triple-Zee groused. “And it has been so very long.” Aphra had little patience for his complaining. They had a mission here, a particularly special one. It wasn't exactly the _culmination_ of all Lord Vader's plans, but it was a vital step on the road towards it, and she wasn't going to let a prissy assassin-bot mess everything up out of uncontrolled bloodlust. “Waiting and waiting when that time could far more usefully be spent stretching out their deaths one by one...”

“You're not going to change the way things have to go by whining about it,” Aphra told him. “Now listen and let's go over the plan one more time if only so you can't pretend you didn't understand it. That means you too Bee-Tee.” The droid didn't acknowledge that in any way but Aphra was still going to take that silence as assent, for her own peace of mind if nothing else. It was impossible to know what BeeTee was thinking about most of the time – or even if he had been programmed to have any kind of personality beyond murder. But he would do what both she and Triple-Zero told him to, thank the Force. “We infiltrate this place separately. I am just an ordinary technician here to troubleshoot any equipment problems the broadcast station might have. Triple-Zee, you're a protocol droid ordered by the news channel, and BeeTee is a camera-droid. Okay? We got all that?”

“With protest, Mistress Aphra,” Triple-Zero said. 

“Protest all you want, just don't do it where anyone but me can hear you,” Aphra said. “We don't do anything until Lord Vader sends us his signal.”

“Yes Mistress Aphra.”

It was a very good thing that she was as good a programmer as she was, Aphra knew, because otherwise she had no doubt that these two droids would be the death of her – and yes, she did mean that literally.

Still, they would do what they were told – for now – and that was all she needed.

\----

**1 ABY – SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

His son was looking for him. Vader was under no illusion as to why – he had now discovered the truth. Perhaps it had been a misstep to conceal it from him for this long. But he had wanted the gift of the Empire to be given under circumstances that had been denied him for Padmé. It should have been a wonderful surprise, presented in the moment of their triumph. He had imagined it a dozen times and more; the throne room in the Imperial Palace, Sidious dead on the floor having fallen to their sabers, the onlookers of the Imperial Court augmented with Inquisitors, Piett, other loyal Navy Captains... and then all taking a knee as one, leaving Luke free to ascend the steps to the throne itself. In such a moment, under such a weight of expectant history, the galaxy holding its breath... no-one would be able to refuse. That option would not exist. 

But equally some part of him had known that was no more than an idle fantasy. His plans could not be kept from Luke forever, and certainly not for the whole of the war to come. It was inevitable that he find out, and no secret as to the source either. Leia had grown strong in the Force, strong enough to speak to Luke through the budding connection of family. Informing the Rebel Alliance – and in consequence informing _her_ – had been necessary to impress upon them that Luke was no longer one of their soldiers, that he no longer served them but himself, and no interests other than his own. Vader could not truly have expected them to accept it without question, and thus perhaps it had simply been his own subconcious working against him. _Wanting_ Luke to know. 

Now would come a conversation he did not look forward to. A necessary conversation all the same, and one that Luke was more than entitled to. His son would want answers; very well. Vader would give them to him. 

Dogma was guarding the door to his quarters. Vader felt his familiar mind startle at Luke's approach, and the clone was quick to step in front of him to block his path. Vader had known Dogma – as he knew all the clones – for more than twenty years. Dogma might not be Force-sensitive but that was no obstacle under the circumstances. Vader reached out and sent the words echoing through his brain. 

_Stop. Let him past._

Dogma did not argue or question. He simply obeyed. The door hissed open, letting Luke into the room. His son paused, surprised. Evidently he had not expected Vader to be waiting for him. 

“My son,” Vader said in greeting. “You have questions.”

Luke rallied quickly, the surprise dissipating into determination. “So what Leia said is really true then? After we defeat the Emperor... you want me to take his place?” There was a raw hurt, almost betrayal, in his tone. It caused an echoing pang in Vader's own heart, but he dismissed it. He refused to feel guilt. His reasons were logical, justified. 

“That is correct.”

“Father... _why?_ ” 

“It is the way things _must_ be,” Vader told him. “There is no-one else who can be trusted with the throne.”

“You?” Luke suggested, with a certain degree of sarcasm. He was angry, which was justifiable enough, but if Vader could only explain to him in the right way... 

“It cannot be me,” he said. “I am no politician, and I am not foolish enough to pretend this is something I can learn. Not now. Not after so long at my Master's heel.” That came out with more rancor than he had intended... but it was true all the same. He had followed Sidious loyally, thankfully even, half because of trust and half because it had been a relief not to have to _think._ He had always been at the beck and call of someone, whether that had been the Jedi Council or the Emperor... 

Or – a hesitant thought – as a slave. But no, the situations were not comparable. They could not be. 

“I'm not a politician either!” Luke protested. “Even if I wanted to rule anything – which I _don't_ – I wouldn't even know where to start! If you're ill-suited to be the Emperor then surely I'm no better.”

“You are adaptable. You can learn. You have so much of your mother in you...”

Luke shook his head emphatically. “I'm not doing it. I can't. I won't.”

“Then everything we will have worked for will fail.” It was the simple truth, even if his son did not want to hear it. “Without someone at its head the Empire will tear itself apart. The Moffs will grab for power, trying to elevate themselves to the throne, of the galaxy caring nothing for those who might be caught in the crossfire of their own personal wars. There will be lawlessness, chaos, disorder... your Rebel Alliance may do its best to take advantage of that, but it has not the size or resources to be truly effective. They will not be enough, and millions will die.”

Luke closed his eyes. “No,” he said quietly. “It won't... it won't be like that.” He was trying to convince himself that his words were true, but it was no more than blind optimism and they both knew that. He opened his eyes again, sighing, but not looking at Vader directly. “There are other ways. Not an Empire but... to go back to a Republic, a Senate...”

“No,” Vader said sharply. “Never. Your Rebel Alliance is and always will be wrong to desire that. Believe one who was there and remembers...”

Luke interrupted him; perhaps the only one who would ever dare do so, apart from Sidious. Or Leia, in her anger. “You _aren't_ the only person who was around for the Old Republic. What about Mon Mothma? General Dodonna? General Rieekan?”

“Those who benefited by the system's corruption,” Vader replied. “Not those who suffered at the hands of its uncaring bureaucracy. The Senate... happy enough to take, but never to give. To fill its pockets with credits and turn a blind eye to slavery and piracy.”

“But...” Luke began to say, and then stopped. Vader could feel the doubt in him. The argument dried up on his tongue – for the moment at least. “And even if I was to do what you wanted...” he said, “what's to say the same thing won't happen? You said yourself the Moffs are mostly corrupt. Why would any of these people want to follow _me_?”

“They will see your strength, and they will see that I stand beside you,” Vader told his son. He sent waves of comforting emotion through the Force to Luke as best he could. It seemed clear enough to him, why could Luke not see it?

“And when they realise everything I want to change for the sake of the galaxy?” Luke asked. “In this hypothetical situation, I mean. Because I would. I'd bring back the Senate – a new Senate, better, not corrupt – end slavery, end the laws that let people mistreat non-humans, stop oppressing people...”

“Many might welcome those changes,” Vader remarked. “Although I do not believe the Senate could ever be anything but what it was. And if they do not accept your rule...” Then they would be dealt with. Permanently. 

Luke made a noise of frustration, but for the moment at least he appeared to have run out of arguments. Not that this meant the discussion was over by any means. It was merely the first salvo of a disagreement between them that would not be easy to settle. Luke was stubborn, but eventually he would see reason. 

“You're never going to drop this are you?” Luke said quietly. 

“No, my son.”

Luke sighed. “There was actually something else I came here to talk to you about,” he said. “I meant to talk to you about it before but you were busy with Kix and then today... it's important though. No, more than just the one thing. First, I wanted to know what happened with the Alliance. I would have asked Leia but in the shock of learning about... that...”

“A treaty has been agreed upon. They had no objection to any of my terms.”

“Not even...?” Luke shook his head, sighing. 

“It was a surprise,” Vader allowed. “but it did not change their minds.”

“Then if we're allies, there's no point in keeping our allies locked up, now is there,” Luke said, with – for him – an unusual amount of cunning. “Let my friends go.”

If it would please his son, or at least placate him a little, it was no hardship to agree. “Captain Solo and his Wookie will be released.”

“And Ezra's friends as well,” Luke added. “The whole Spectre crew.”

“Have you asked the Twelfth Brother about that?” Vader said. “Perhaps he might wish to keep them where he can see them.”

“He wants them safe, that's all,” Luke replied. “Safe and happy if at all possible. They'll never forgive him while they're still locked up.”

“Very well. They matter little to me.” Their usefulness to keep Leia under control was limited in any case – and he had only needed _that_ until this agreement with the Rebellion was in place.

“And... I'd ask it for Leia as well, except we both know you would never agree to that.”

Vader nodded. “If that is all?”

“All for the first point,” Luke said. “I was meditating yesterday, like Alkamar has been teaching me, and I had a vision.”

That was more than enough to awaken Vader's curiosity. This would not be the first vision his son had received of late, and now he wondered if he had inherited that same talent or propensity that had once caused _him_ so much trouble. Visions had not been common amongst the Jedi, and particularly not those of such detail and coherence. Kenobi had seen fleeting images which required much study and meditation to clarify. Mace Windu had seen what he called 'shatterpoints'; places and times where even a small action taken could change the course of history. But before now, Vader had never heard of anyone else alive who had experienced the perfect and horrifying clarity that had plagued his nightmares long ago. 

“The vision was...” Luke paused, searching for words. “not like the one that brought me to Fondor. It wasn't images of things that existed or that are going to exist in the future. I was somewhere else. A temple, like the one on Vrogas Vas except... not. It felt Arkanii. And there was a kind of manifestation of the Force itself, wanting to show me something.”

“That is... most unusual,” Vader said. The Force... but in what aspect? Dark, Light, something other? Of course visions were nothing more or less than the Force showing those it favoured something that they needed to know, but it was not usually quite so blatant about it as this sounded. 

Luke nodded fervently. Vader did not need to reach out with the Force to see that this had left him unsettled. “I saw these tanks, with bodies inside. Clones. Clones of the Emperor. I think that somewhere out there he has more like that kid Hux. But it's more complicated than that. From what the vision was trying to say, I think somehow he might be able to transfer himself, his conciousness, into one of them when he dies.”

So. It was as he had suspected. Vader took no satisfaction in knowing he had predicted the designs of his former master, not when it presented such a problem for them. Sidious would not have a single cache of cloned bodies, but many, and their locations would be kept under the utmost secrecy. The clones would need to die before the Emperor did to ensure their victory, but how would they find them? How would they be able to ensure that one had not been missed somewhere? And even if all were killed, that would not stop him. The technique did not _require_ a clone to take over, that was merely a convenience. Any warm if weak-willed body would do.

No, the task was an impossible one. But there had to be another way. A way of preventing Sidious from fleeing his corpse, of trapping him so that his death was in fact a real death. 

“Father?” Luke said. Vader realised he had been silent too long. 

“I suspected something of this ilk,” he admitted. 

“Then, you know about this Sith technique?” Luke asked hopefully. “You know how to stop it?”

Slowly Vader shook his head. He did not wish to disappoint his son, but he must. “Such knowledge was forbidden me,” he said. “Only Sidious himself knows enough to stop it.”

“But he must have learned it from somewhere,” Luke said, burning with determination. “A holocron or some of these other Sith artefacts you told me he has. Maybe the same knowledge is out there somewhere in another source. Maybe we could find it.”

“Perhaps,” Vader allowed. They had little choice in the matter in any case. If Sidious could not be killed, truly killed, then victory was impossible. “We will search what records the Inquistorius has stored here.” Those records would be incomplete; the full ones were on Mustafar. He did not welcome the thought of returning there. It had been painful enough to do so once a year for the final testing of the new Inquisitors. Given a choice, he would never set foot on that planet again. 

“And we can ask Alkamar, of course,” Luke added. 

“Acceptable.”

“Don't think I've forgotten about this idea of making me Emperor by the way,” Luke told him. “I don't accept that it's the only way. I'll think of something else, just like we'll think of a way to stop Sidious.”

“There is time,” Vader said, allowing the meaning to remain less than specific. Time to consider other ideas yes, and then time to realise that there were no others. The war would not be swift. The Empire was too vast for that, and while this new obstacle still existed there could be no surgical strike towards Imperial Centre and the Palace, no quick end to the conflict. By the end of it, Luke _would_ come to accept the truth. 

“So, do you want to open the holocron now?” Luke asked him. 

“No,” Vader replied, with a dismissive gesture. He might accept that Alkamar's ideas were not entirely without merit, but that did not mean he liked or trusted her. “The records may yet give us the answers we seek.”

“Okay,” Luke said. “I'll... go now. You've given me a lot to think about.”

“Very well.” He would have preferred his son to stay, but he would not push. Skywalkers were too stubborn for that. If Luke remained, they would inevitably end up in another argument. 

Luke left, and Vader was alone with his thoughts.


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Han has too much time to think - but not enough to stop him saying something foolhardy, clone tensions run high, Artoo crashes the medbay party, and Luke asks for some advice.

**1 ABY – SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

Han was starting to lose track of how much time they'd spent here. It had been at least a week or two, maybe just a bit more, he knew that much. But there was nothing to do in this room except talk and sleep, and the boredom was getting to be almost unbearable. What he wouldn't have given for just a simple deck of sabbac cards! At least the folks he was locked up with had some interesting stories to tell. Admittedly they were an idealistic lot much like the rest of the Rebel Alliance, but you couldn't have everything. 

He felt he had gotten to know the members of Spectre cell pretty well by now. Take Rex, the old guy, who would have been your typical ex-soldier type to be found in a hundred variations of age and species in dive bars galaxy-wide, if not for the fact he was an actual clone from the actual clone wars. Once upon a time that would have made Han sit up and take notice – but he'd made his reasons for not giving a kriff anymore more than clear to Leia on that beyond-middle-of-nowhere rock Rex and his fellow clones were calling home these days. That didn't mean Han wouldn't casually bring up the topic of the war in conversation in the hopes of getting a decent story out of the guy. 

In a tactful way though, alright. He wasn't oblivious, or a monster. The excitement and glory of the battles he remembered on the HoloNet as a boy had been propaganda and the gloss of childhood – he knew war wasn't _really_ like that. But what had been truth, and what had been pretty lies... that was the kind of question he wanted answers to. 

It was easy to forget, even now, that Rex had been one of Vader's soldiers. Easier still to forget who Vader was, or had been, underneath the mask and armour. Even Rex himself, when he did speak of back then, would often pause in the middle of a phrase, his face twisting under the influence of complicated emotions before talking about something General Skywalker had done. 

Darth Vader. Luke's father. _Leia's_ father. Anakin Skywalker. Jedi. Hero. Sith. Enemy. Monster... Han wasn't qualified for any of this. If Skywalker hadn't been a childhood hero... If he hadn't given way more of a kriff about Luke than he really oughta... Corellian hells, if he could work his own damn head around what he felt for Leia for that matter... This was the kind of mess that should have had him getting the hell out a long time back. 

He had tried the life of an Imp, way back when, before he'd rapidly realised what a mistake _that_ had been. The Rebellion had never exactly appealed, mostly because they didn't have the shadow of a chance of winning, so he'd fallen back on what he knew and was good at; smuggling. He should never have let himself get wrapped up in all of... _this_. 

And what about the rest of Spectre. Zeb, whose people had been all but wiped out by the Empire – well that was reason enough to want to fight back even if it was bound to get him killed too; it wasn't exactly a secret to Han that Chewie would have been off to join the Rebellion long before now if Han himself hadn't been around. Chopper was a droid, so that didn't count. Droids went where their masters went, simple enough. Sabine, this Mando kid with a teenagers' hatred of authority – although it was a little more complicated than that. She'd been an Acadamy cadet, same as he had once, only she had seen through the nerf-dung nonsense far earlier than he had. Maybe he was envious of that – although if Han hadn't stayed on until he had his illusions stripped away and his face rubbed in the reality of what the Empire was _really_ all about he would never have met Chewbacca. Chewie might still be a slave somewhere, or dead, and he... hells, he might be on a ship just like this one, only on the other side of the locked door. 

So that just left Hera Syndulla. A skilled pilot by the accounts of her friends, which was more trustworthy than if she had boasted about it herself. Han had heard more than enough boasts from the kinds of people he usually spent time around, and more than half of them had been about half as skilled as they'd claimed. But more than what the others said, when Hera spoke about flying the love and longing in her voice was unmistakable. She reminded him of Luke that way – although every time his thoughts turned that way they ended up sinking somewhere unpleasant. What Han wouldn't have given for the kid to be spared all of this...

Anyway, aside from being a pilot, Hera Syndulla's story was a common one. The Empire had left enough people like her in its wake. Planet invaded, species oppressed and enslaved, lover murdered... Some crumpled under the weight of it, others ran, and some joined the Rebel Alliance. And Hera had enough charisma and vision to have dragged all these others into her orbit along the way. 

From the sounds of it they'd had just enough success often enough that, at least at first, it really had seemed they were striking a blow against the Empire. Then had come a kid called Ezra, and... a lot of stuff none of them wanted to talk about. Han wasn't going to press anymore than they already had. He thought Leia might have wanted to, because of Force-stuff of course, but even Leia at her most stubborn wasn't needlessly cruel. They had heard the basics by now anyway.

Han had seen Ezra only that once, when he'd shown up on the bridge with his former friends in tow, acting all buddy-buddy with Luke and doing a good job of bluffing the Imp who'd been menacing them all with a trio of Star Destroyers at the time. He hadn't been that exciting. Nothing like Vader at any rate, which was Han's only frame of reference for a so-called Sith, or whatever else the Inquisitors were meant to be. More than just kooky ISB agents anyway. But an Imp was an Imp, and more-so on the background of betraying his friends and murdering his mentor. That was cold even for the circles Han usually ran in. 

Ezra still gave enough of a kriff to ask Luke to check up on them though, judging from that little visit a few days ago. Whether that really meant anything... And Luke himself had looked... worn. Weighed down. It was obvious by what. Han understood about difficult choices. He couldn't blame Luke for doing what he had, even if it had ended the rest of them up here. As imprisonment went it was alright, and a lot better than he might have expected. 

He was pulled out of his thoughts by the noise of the door sliding open. Smuggler's instincts had him rolling from the bunk to his feet, hand falling to the place where a holster wasn't. It was only a single stormtrooper though, armed but with the muzzle of the blaster pointing at the floor. One of those blue-painted troopers – a clone. Han scowled. He'd heard what Rex's brothers had to say for themselves and hadn't been impressed by it. Was this one going to try the same arguments all over again?

All the others were on their feet as well by now. There was a tension in the room, a sense that they were all thinking what he was. Only one of them. They could rush him, overpower him, get _out_ of here...

“I've got some good news for you all,” the clone said. Slight shifts of his helmet meant he was looking at each of them in turn. “The Rebel Alliance and Vader's Empire are allies now.”

“They already know that,” Leia said. “I told them. And shouldn't you be calling it _Luke's_ Empire?”

“Hmm, that sounds like something I'm not meant to know about,” the clone said, sounding dryly amused. “So I'll pretend I didn't hear it. My point was that since we're allies, it'd be more than a bit rude to keep you lot here as captives. You're free to go.”

“You... what?” Zeb said. 

[Think before you speak for once in your damn life Han] Chewie growled, raising his paws into an aggressive stance. 

“Sorry for the inconvenience,” the clone said – and it sounded like he was smirking under the helmet. “I think we still have the ships you came in on around here somewhere...”

“Wait,” Hera said sharply. “This doesn't make sense. What's this _really_ about?”

“Just what I said,” the clone replied. “Rebels, allies, freedom. The chain of logic isn't that hard to follow. Frankly its not as though you lot are more than more mouths to feed; it's not as if we _need_ you for anything.” 

“Except me,” Leia said. She had her arms tightly folded across her chest. “Right?”

“Well, yes,” the clone admitted. “You're the exception to that.”

“So we're just supposed to leave Leia here,” Han said incredulously. “Look buddy, you'd better think again because...”

Leia put her hand on his arm. When he turned to look at her she shook her head slightly. “There's no need to stay just to prove a point,” she said quietly. “You'll do more good back with the Alliance. I know what Vader wants from me, and I'm not going to give it to him.”

“Bad enough that Luke's gotta stay here but you too Princess? No. Not gonna happen.”

“You choose now of all times to be stubborn?” Leia asked him. 

“She has a point,” Hera said. “If this really is genuine and not some kind of mind game. What kind of options do you think they're giving us here?”

“Yeah, because leaving people behind went so _well_ for you in the past,” Han snarled. In the silence that followed he wanted to take it back, but too late. His big kriffing mouth... 

__Chewie howled. Han closed his eyes.

“ _Wow_ , you're a jerk,” Sabine told him. “Maybe we _should_ just leave you here.” Next to her Chopper warbled something insulting in binary. 

“I didn't mean...” Han said. “I'm _sorry_ okay.”

The clone trooper coughed. “Entertaining as this is,” he said, “I've got better things to do than stand in this doorway all day. Are you coming or not? And I can't even believe I have to ask that question.”

“We're coming,” Hera said, striding over and pushing past him, closely followed by Zeb, Sabine and Chopper. Rex hung back – Han suddenly realised he hadn't spoken since the clone had shown up. He'd just been staring at the guy. 

“Well this is awkward,” the clone said under his breath – although not quietly enough that Han didn't hear him. “Captain Rex. Nice to see you alive, even if you are on the wrong side. You know it's still not too late? You could...”

“Can it, Gamma,” Rex growled. “I know where my place, my _loyalty,_ is.”

“Not with your brothers, apparently,” Gamma replied. “Fine. You've made your choice.”

“And you've made yours.” Rex shook his head. “I'm disappointed in the lot of you. You're no _vode_ of mine anymore.”

“Run along with the rest of the rebel scum then,” Gamma said, with all the Imperial venom that had been lacking up until now. Rex shoved him in the chest on the way out, growling something in Mando'a. Han had never picked up much of the language. It wasn't something that Mandalorians taught to outsiders. 

[We can't stay here Han.] Chewie said. [You know that.]

“Yeah, I guess I do,” Han replied, sighing. He could tell by Leia's frosty look that after _that_ comment of his she wouldn't be giving him the time of day for a while anyway even if he did insist on hanging around. “Let's go then.”

\----

“What are you doing?”

Gamma glanced up from the datapad in his hands long enough to identify which brother had approached him. Commander Dogma. He sat up, spine straightening instinctively. “Hello sir,” he said, and held up the datapad for Dogma to see. “You know the HoloNet blackout only goes one way? We can still receive, we just can't send. Interesting, right?”

Dogma looked at the screen, frowning. “You're checking the official news channels. Why?”

Gamma shrugged. “I wanted to see if any rumours about us had gotten out yet.”

“Why would they? Defeats are bad for morale, why would this be any different? What was Fondor if not a defeat for the Emperor?” Dogma gave him a long look. “You were the one sent to release the Rebel prisoners. Were there problems with the traitor?”

“You mean am I trying to distract myself? Yeah,” Gamma admitted. “I mean it's only Captain Rex disowning the lot of us right! Not like it was someone we all _looked up to_ or anything.” If he'd been trying to keep the hurt out of his voice he'd failed miserably, he reflected. But it was Rex. General Skywalker's second in command. The stories about the kind of missions he'd pulled... even looking out for them during messes like Umbara... 

Speaking of that, how must Lord Vader be feeling about it? Perhaps he was used to betrayal after everything with the Jedi Order, but it wasn't like being able to say _that_ was a good thing either. So far as Gamma knew Lord Vader had never gone to see Rex, even if he had to be the only person who had a chance of convincing a _vod_ foolish enough to take his chip out that he was wrong about everything... but it had to be too painful. Given the lengths he'd gone to for the rest of them... 

Gamma sighed. There hadn't been much for them to do on _Executor_ in the past few weeks. After so long in semi-retirement on Vjun it was strange being around other soldiers again, not that any of the Navy or Stormtrooper corpsmen knew what to do with them either. For most it would be the first time they'd ever seen a clone, and what with attrition and passing years most of the rumours about them were less than accurate. Not the best for fostering camaraderie. It had been a bit lonely, with only a few other brothers for company. Kix was the only one of them who actually had a role here, helping out Lord Vader. At least on Vjun they'd had hobbies, and the rest of the planet to run around on so long as they kept an eye out for the hssiss. 

Things should get a bit more interesting when the war started properly.

“He's gone now,” Dogma said. “We needn't think of him again.”

Gamma tapped a restless finger against the edge of the datapad. “I can't stop thinking about what he said,” he admitted. 

Dogma stiffened. “Lies. That's all. You know better.”

Tap. Tap. “Yes, I do, but...” Dogma really wasn't the person to be talking to about this. Dogma didn't do doubts. There wasn't room in his mind for them. He'd been like that from the start, but whatever the long-necks had done to him had only made him more so. 

Still, Dogma was the one asking, and Gamma wouldn't lie to a brother. 

“Fives, Tup... when they had their chips damaged or taken out they attacked the first authority figures they came across; Tup's General, the Chancellor. If Rex is like them, he shouldn't be able to work with _anyone_ , even the Rebel Alliance. He shouldn't be as stable as he is.”

“You think the rebel scum are any kind of authority?”Dogma said, voice cracking like a whip. “Rex has all the authority he needs to direct his aggression against in the form of the Empire itself – even assuming that theory of yours is true, and the attacks of our brothers weren't just random.”

“If they were random Rex shouldn't have been able to last that long in a cell without trying to kill someone,” Gamma argued. “I'm not saying it's calculated, but it has to be more targeted than _that._ ”

He had forced Dogma to consider it, which was more than he'd expected. But they were _vode_ , properly. These weren't the words of an _arrueti_ like Rex. They held real weight. 

“I'll allow you're right about that much,” Dogma said slowly. “But the rest? We don't know exactly how the chips work – no one but our makers do – but we have examples of what we're like without them. Or take our gene-stock; Jango Fett, with all his true-Mando'ade stubbornness and individuality. It can't all be cultural.”

Gamma nodded. “Mando'a only do their own thing,” he said, glad that Dogma was agreeing with his line of thought. “The only person they answer to is their Mand'alor. Fierce independence. Perhaps it is in our genes somewhere, at a place the long-necks couldn't strip out without reducing our effectiveness. It explains the choice of targets once the chip's gone. But that still doesn't explain Rex.”

“He was raving well enough when he got going,” Dogma growled. He must be thinking of the heat of that argument again. Gamma had heard it all – and had forgiven Dogma some of what he'd said in the moment, driven by anger and frustration. He didn't like to think of their dead brothers himself, but that was... well it was in the past. Better to try and forget about it, rather than castigate them for the choice they'd made. “Then the brother he was got all stripped away. Nonsense conspiracies and rebel lies.”

Gamma nodded. That much was true. “Easier though,” he said, “to pretend we didn't do what we did. Pretend it was out of our hands.” And it had felt like that at the time, the conditioned responses drilled into him by Kamino directing his body as his eyes chose targets and his hands fired a blaster with very little input from his shocked, unhappy brain at all. But that was psychology, not a tiny piece of biomechanics embedded in his head.

“It was necessary,” Dogma said, trying to be comforting. Not doing it very well, but that was Dogma – he always got awkward about the fact he hadn't been there for it, at the Temple. “The Jedi had to die.” At least Lord Vader had spared them the task of killing the younglings. And not all of them had needed to be killed. The Jedi's poison hadn't run too deep to be scoured out – likely some lived even now amongst the Inquisiorius' ranks. 

“Even although he's fooling himself about the existence of a conspiracy,” Gamma continued, “and like I said I can see why, that doesn't mean he's entirely wrong about everything. Maybe the chips aren't as vital as we think. Maybe the... sudden rush of aggression or whatever it is wears off. Or after time we can learn how to control it.”

“I doubt it,” Dogma replied. “And don't even think about trying that experiment for yourself.”

Gamma laughed, short and abrupt. “No, never,” he said. “But since Rex got me thinking about them... the biomechanics in them can't last forever. What if they stop working? We have to be prepared if something like that ever happens.”

Dogma was silent for a long moment. 

“Let's all hope that never happens,” he said finally. “I refuse to turn my blaster on another General ever again.”

\----

There was an astromech droid in his medbay. Kix glared at it, hoping it might take the hint and get out, but to no avail. The dumpy little blue-and-white thing twitched a projector lens at him and warbled loudly in binary. 

“I don't speak that,” Kix told it flatly. “Go away. I'm about to be busy here.” The droid was familiar; he had seen it around _Executor_ before. It seemed someone had given it codes that let it more or less have the run of the place, which was the only reason it could be _here._ This was definitely meant to be a secure area. 

The droid did not leave. It didn't move in the slightest. It seemed to be looking at him expectantly. 

Kix sighed. “Plug into a terminal or something,” he told it. “At least then I'll know what the kriff you're on about.” 

Grudgingly the astromech rolled over to the wall and extended its probe. If a droid was capable of sulking, this one certainly was doing so. One of the wall-mounted screens booted up and plain text began scrolling across it. [Looking for Vader] the droid said, beeping aggressively for emphasis. [Been kriffing avoiding me. Been avoiding _Luke_ ] 

“You're Commander Skywalker's droid,” Kix said, with sudden realisation. That explained how it'd gotten in here. “Tell Luke he can come and speak to his father himself rather than using a messenger-droid.” Kix wasn't oblivious to recent events; he knew the two had argued recently. Which had _not_ been helping Lord Vader's stubborn disregard for his own health. “I could use another voice anyway to knock some sense into Lord Vader's head – maybe one he actually _listens_ to.” Wouldn't that be a fine thing. To be a medic people listened to. That was the kind of luxury only civilian medics got. 

[Luke didn't send me] the droid's translation exclaimed. [Came myself. I _always_ help with the karking repairs! He needs me more now than ever, with all that bodywork you're upgrading!]

Kix started to object with something along the lines of how ships and cybernetics were two _entirely_ different things, and also that the droid might like to watch its tone with him, then his curiosity caught up with him. “What do you mean 'more than ever'?”

[I was his astromech first, slag-head] the little droid explained, looking almost... proud? [Before he changed his designation]

“You mean...” Kix lowered his voice. “When he was still General Skywalker?” 

The droid beeped an affirmative. Kix wracked his memory. As a medic he'd never had much call to be messing around in the hangers, but he had still seen the General's fighter in passing more than once. It had been so long ago, but... “Artoo?” he asked. 

[You _do_ kriffing remember!]

Kix dragged a hand over his skull. “That's... well. I guess you can stay.” Though quite what Lord Vader would have to say about that... 

And speaking of that man, here he was. Vader stopped a few strides into the medbay, blank helmet showing nothing of his underlying reaction... then he moved close enough in a few almost hesitant steps to reach out and place a hand on the dome of the astromech's head. 

“You must feel I have been neglecting you,” Vader told the droid, as quietly as his vocoder could manage. Kix turned away and ducked his head towards the table of surgical and cybernetic instruments had had already finished preparing earlier. This wasn't something for his ears. He did his best to ignore the conversation going on, which was easy enough when it came to the droid's binary warbling, but he couldn't help but catch the thread of it all the same. 

This was one pushy droid. Someone who knew Lord Vader less well would have been surprised at the liberties he was letting the astromech have with him, but he always _had_ had a soft spot for them even back during the war. The 501st had plenty of rumours about the General and his pet astromech, including the time he'd mounted some kind of rescue mission for the thing after the Seppies had gotten hold of it. In fact, protective as he was of the R2 unit, Kix wondered how it had even gotten separated from Vader in the first place. 

Somehow it had found its way into his son's hands at some point over the last twenty years though, and now it was back with him. The galaxy could be a small place at times – particularly where the Force was involved. 

“There is no need for your assistance,” Vader was telling the droid. “Medic Kix is more than capable.”

It was nice to be appreciated. The droid didn't seem overly impressed by that though, because Kix would put money on the noise it made in response being a rude one. 

“Clearly I am not going to be able to get rid of you,” Vader said. “Very well. You may stay, to _observe_ only.”

Kix sighed surreptitiously. Just what he wanted. A pair of judgemental optics trained on him through a surgery that – although it had gone well the first time – he was neither experienced at or entirely comfortable with. But look on the bright side. Maybe if he told the astromech about the post-op instructions Lord Vader was reluctant to follow it might be able to make sure he actually _listened._

What had things come to when his General listened to a clanker over one of his own men!

\----

Luke hadn't spoken properly with his father since confronting him about his plans to make him Emperor, still too angry at being lied to and that Vader had thought he would simply... go along with it. Luke might have come to accept a lot over the past weeks – or months, actually. _That_ had been a shock when he'd taken the time to really think about it. It had been _months_ since Vrogas Vas. That didn't mean there weren't still lines he would not cross. Hadn't he made that clear? Why wouldn't his father believe him about that? 

At least one good thing had happened. His friends – well, most of them – had been allowed to go free. Han, Chewie, Ezra's family... they had to be back with the Alliance by now. All except for Leia, but there wasn't much he could do about that. 

For the rest of _Executor_ and for the fleet moored in their orbital patterns above Arkanis, they were stuck in a holding pattern, waiting for orders and spending the time in coming to wary terms with the choices they had made, the side they had chosen. For Luke... there was always more training to do. He'd made a lot of improvement in his abilities with a lightsaber while they were on Vjun, but he appreciated that he still had a long way to go yet – and that wasn't even getting into what he'd been doing with Alkamar. 

Speaking of... 

Luke called the Arkanii holocron into wakefulness at the next opportunity he got. The small holo-form of Alkamar blossomed into being in a way that was by now familiar. “Hello again,” Luke greeted her. 

“Greetings student,” Alkamar replied. “How goes your practise?”

“Not bad,” Luke said, “but that's not why I wanted to talk to you.” Alkamar's head tilted to the side, birdlike in curiosity. Luke was quick to explain – his dream that turned out to be a vision, the waking vision that followed it. The secret about the Emperor it had revealed. 

“Now I understand your concern,” Alkamar told him, her expression turning sour with clear disgust. “How very like the Sith to do a thing like this. The technique is not one I have ever encountered for myself, but I wonder if your vision itself holds a clue as to how to find out more. The temple you describe to me is familiar.”

“I thought it felt Arkanii somehow,” Luke said. “I mean, it didn't feel like the Jedi Temple, or like the Dark Side, so...”

“In the height of our power we had many temples,” Alkamar said. “Some planets are stronger in the Force than others, for reasons we did try to explore if with little to show for it. Tatooine was... I suppose to call it the holiest would be appropriate. But there were temples on Arkanis as well, and I believe you saw one of them.”

“Then wouldn't the Inquisitorius know about it?” Luke asked. “I think I would have felt the temple on Vrogas Vas even if I hadn't known it was there.”

“I hope they do not know of it,” Alkamar replied. “I fear what they might have done to it. They would be no more forgiving than the Jedi. But I thought to hide myself – who is to say others of my people would not have done the same.” She was referring to the Dark and Light Side protections on her holocron. Doing the same to a temple didn't seem like it would be very easy, but thinking back to the vision Luke had the impression that the temple he'd seen might have been underground. Perhaps only the entrance was protected – or hidden. 

“I was going to go down with my father to explore their records anyway,” Luke said. “We can look for any sign of this temple at the same time.” A thought struck him. “Those three bowls of water... that's significant isn't it? I think I remember a story from Tatooine, something that my aunt told me.”

“Three wells for the three moons,” Alkamar said with a smile. “That number is an important one when walking the Moon-paths. Three for past, present and future. Three for patience, knowledge and wisdom. Or tranquillity, clarity and contemplation, depending on who you asked. We were a people hardly free from arguments about philosophy – I fear that is the natural state of any sensitive to the Force.”

“It sounds very peaceful though,” Luke said. “From everything you've told me.”

“That was at the core of it all,” Alkamar replied. “It was our path to seek knowledge, of ourselves and of the Force, so that we might help others. Healing, visions, the arts of the mind... it would be too dangerous to set those like us to war as well. Which was only part of our quarrel with the Jedi.”

Luke thought about this. “But for all the bad things the Jedi did, it wasn't as though they were fighting for power or for themselves,” he said. “They fought in the Clone Wars to protect people.”

Alkamar shrugged. “It was the way of the Arkanii to separate into Moon and Sun. The Sun-paths are the paths of war. I admit we were not so rigid as to force our younglings into one path or other and indeed there were some who never chose a path for all their lives. But one could not achieve real mastery that way.”

“Is that why you called my father Son of the Suns?” Luke asked, with sudden suspicion. 

“Partly,” Alkamar replied. “It was a title given to our supreme military commanders – but I suspect it has come to mean more than that in the millennia since. Your father spoke of a legend – and a prophecy.”

Luke hadn't remembered it at the time, but after that particular session with Alkamar, and his father's reaction to being called that, he had managed to dredge up the recollection eventually. He would never call his knowledge of Tatooine's slave-culture complete, but Aunt Beru had wanted him to know his heritage, as much as had been passed on to her by his grandmother. “They say the Son of the Suns shall arise at the day of reckoning, when the eggs of the dragon hatch – or perhaps his coming causes them to hatch. Then all the masters will be thrown down and destroyed.”

“I can see why that might discomfort a Sith,” Alkamar said. 

“It's more complicated than that,” Luke said, bristling on his father's behalf. His father had grown up with that tale he was sure, and at least at one time he had wanted to see it fulfilled. But the Jedi would never have allowed it – and Sidious certainly would not. 

But now though? Once Sidious was dead? 

The Alliance would do it, when they were in charge. But... how quickly? Luke had no illusions that all their problems would be over with Sidious gone. There would be the rest of the Empire to fight, what remained of it. Surely there had to be a way to end things more quickly... Or was that getting dangerously close to what Vader wanted him to do. Become Emperor, change the existing Empire rather than tearing it all down. Would that really even work? Or would the problems be exactly the same.

“I will take your word regarding your father,” Alkamar said. She was watching him with a curious expression, as though she was aware of some of what he'd been thinking. Luke realised he had no idea how much holocrons were able to use the Force. “And I wish you luck in your search for a way to defeat this Sith Master you will face.”

“Thank you,” Luke replied. At least the benefit of his conversation with her had been that it had taken his mind of their problem for a little while. The thought of it – and that they had barely any leads to go on – made a ball of anxiety coil up in the pit of his stomach. “But for right now... can we go over that meditation again?”


	36. Chapter 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Artoo remains the MVP, Fourth Sister goes on a field trip, Piett is concerned, and Aphra is getting tired of undercover work.
> 
> CW for Inquisitorius brainwashing.

**1 ABY – SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis system, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

Deep in meditation, Luke sensed that a presence was approaching well before his ears might have picked up any noise from the corridor outside. It took him a moment though to actually work out who it was – he had never been this immersed in the Force outside of a fight or some other kind of urgent situation before, and he wasn't used to the way it hijacked these otherworldly senses and turned up the dials on them to a hundred and ten percent. The presence was familiar, but it didn't feel like a human. It didn't feel like much at all. His mind threw up metaphors – a piece of glass catching the sun, the tracery of stars in a distant nebula at the limits of unaided sight... 

The door of Luke's room slid open with a hiss, and Luke opened his eyes. In the moments before he lost control of the meditation and it began to slip away his eyesight seemed enhanced, reality overlaid with his perception of the Force, colours outside of colour, shapes outside of space, layers and layers unfolded... and then like a dream it was gone. 

[Luke!] Artoo warbled at him, rolling forwards. [Good. We need to kriffing talk.] 

So that was what droids felt like in the Force, Luke thought, and then made himself pay attention. “Hey Artoo,” he said. It had been a while since he'd last seen the astromech – he'd given Artoo a copy of the code cylinder Captain – no, _Admiral_ Piett had handed over in the aftermath of everything at Fondor and let the droid go off to do whatever he wanted. It wasn't as though he'd had the chance to do much flying of late. 

That was something he was really beginning to miss, actually. 

[It's about Anakin] Artoo continued, and that made Luke sit up and pay attention. 

“What?” he asked, half-dreading the answer. 

[I've been finding things out] the droid beeped, [about all these slagging repairs, about that karking armour-plating shell his _master_ put him in.] It came out in a rush of binary – Artoo clearly in the grip of a frenzy of emotion – and Luke had gotten fluent enough in the droid language now to recognise that the code Artoo'd used for 'master' was the same as 'owner'. For droids, the two were mostly one and the same. 

“I know, I know,” Luke said, trying to reassure the astromech that he understood the source of his distress. “Kix mentioned that it's not exactly well made, or the most modern equipment. But Father's been upgrading it.”

[Just the cybernetics] Artoo grumbled. [Just the limbs. What about all that other kriffing stuff yeah?]

“I'm sure he's going to get to that too,” Luke said, although a little bit of doubt was starting to creep in. Whenever the subject of his health or medical intervention came around, Vader had a disturbingly dismissive attitude to it all. As though he felt he didn't deserve basic, simple medical care that everyone else got. Like this stubbornness about bacta, for one thing. “Would it make you feel better though if I talked to Kix about it?” he asked. 

[Yeah] Artoo replied. [It really, really kriffing would.]

\----

**1 ABY – Arkanis, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

Arkanis was exactly as wet, and dreary, and unpleasant as she remembered it. Fourth Sister tilted her head downwards to let the rain sleet forwards off the visor of her helmet, suppressing a shiver. They had been out in the forest for what felt like hours searching for a temple she was fairly sure didn't even exist, and the Inquisitorial uniform – hardy as it might be – hadn't been designed for this kind of weather. It was unrelenting, constant, and seemed to work its way in down her collar, through the fastenings of her jacket, and even in through the seams of her boots. She was glad she didn't sweat like a human, because that would have made all this just so much worse. 

Some people might have said she ought to feel more fond of nature as a Zabrak, but Fourth Sister had little patience for those kinds of stereotypes. Heritage, like family, was one more distraction from the Inquisitorius. She was a devotee of the Dark Side first, and everything else second. 

Life since swearing herself over to Lord Vader's cause had not been quite as she'd expected. There had been only a single opportunity to leave their cells with the Sith before, on that trip down to the Academy. She hadn't put herself forward for it through a combination of caution and being outvoted by the more senior Inquisitors, but from the reports of those four all they had done was arrest the former Commandant of the Arkanis Academy and stand guard over him. They hadn't even been needed for the interrogation; Darth Vader had handled that personally. Then he and the Apprentice had wandered off in the general direction of Area Null. 

A lack of all out war with the rest of the Inquisitorius – or at least the part of it on Arkanis – meant that the First Sister must have made a similar decision to the dozen of them on board _Executor_. It would have been nice to be able to talk to their fellows on planet, but Fourth Sister would not ask for trust that had not yet been earned back. Privileges were a thing superiors gave you when you proved yourself worthy. Making pointed suggestions about them was just a justification for punishment. 

A bush was trying to attack her with its wet leaves. Fourth Sister pushed it aside irritably. She wouldn't have put herself forward for _this_ expedition either had she known what it would involve. Or course, they hadn't been told the details until after they were on the surface of Arkanis, and even then she, Sixth Sister and Eighth Brother had been stuck waiting in the shuttle for _hours_ before Vader and the Apprentice had come storming back from the Academy with the Force hanging around them like a cloud and announced they would be heading out into the wilderness. 

Which explained the current situation. The Arkanis air was heavy with fog and mist, wreathing the tall needle-leafed trees and cutting down visibility to scant tens of meters. Quite how Lord Vader expected any of them to find anything under the circumstances was baffling. But it was not for _her_ to question. If a Lord of the Sith told her to look for a millenia-lost temple in the middle of nowhere, then look she would. 

Fourth Sister checked her datapad to make sure she was still on course. Darth Vader had assigned them paths to follow based on one of the standard military search patterns, but this kind of environment was unfamiliar enough to her that it would be easy to go too far one way or another and get lost. Only her tracker signal flashing on the map display was keeping her from just that. She wasn't even entirely sure what she was looking for. According to the records Lord Vader had pulled from the Inquisitorius databanks, something unusual had been detected in the Force fifteen years ago when Project Harvester had been moved into Area Null at the Academy here. Surveys and exploration had found some ruins that might have once been a town, long since swallowed by the forest. The source of the concentration of the Force, or whatever it was, had never been found, but neither had it seemed to pose any danger to their work on Arkanis. It was logged and forgotten about. 

Was that something up ahead? Fourth Sister squinted into the fog. She had been hiking up the side of a hill, still well under the cover of the trees, but now the ground flattened out in front of her into what seemed at first glance to be a kind of gorge. At least, sheer surfaces rose up to either side of a central corridor, but there was a regularity around them that wasn't quite natural. With the eye of faith she could see walls of pour-stone weathered and rutted by time so that the material itself started to look _almost_ like rock. Moss and small plants covered much of the potential walls, further obscuring things, but... Fourth Sister went closer to get a better look. 

She'd been right. The 'gorge' was a passageway between what had once been two different buildings, and although the walls themselves were thick enough that she hadn't been able to see over them from lower down the slope, now their shape and the spaces they contained within were obvious. She wasn't feeling anything in particular in the Force, aside from the life of the forest itself. Nothing that might suggest that what she had found was anything of importance. And it might be nothing – it might be something built far more recently than the temple they were looking for. How Lord Vader and the Apprentice could expect anything much to have survived thousands of years... 

The Fourth Sister shook her head. That wasn't important. What was, was that she contact Darth Vader with what she'd found. 

She raised them over the comms – and after that it was a matter of waiting. Curiosity, always a dangerous quality of hers, impelled her to go further into the ruins. The mist still made it difficult to tell what was going on more than a dozen feet away and the rain showed no signs of letting up now or ever, but at least the trees were spaced more sparsely here, avoiding the walls. Unfortunately that had left thick undergrowth to take its place – and some of the bushes had unpleasantly sharp thorns. 

Gradually an uncertain feeling began to creep over her. Not fear exactly, but there was something undeniably eerie about this place. It felt old. Abandoned. Fourth Sister did not believe in ghosts, although it was true that many cultures around the galaxy had legends of such things. Death meant joining with the Force; there was no individual left at the end of it. All the more reason to avoid death – and there _were_ ways to do it. The Sith knew of such things. But whoever had built this place was not Sith. The Dark Side was no stronger here than anywhere else, although... she frowned. It did feel somehow... different. 

Fourth Sister shrugged off the thought. She wasn't getting anywhere with this, and who knew how big this place was under the cover of trees, undergrowth and fog. Better to get back to the entrance-point she had found and wait for the others – she could already feel the dark font of energy that was Darth Vader moving in this direction. 

She did not have to wait long for their arrival. Lord Vader came striding out of the fog, appearing much like a ghost himself with his cape swirling around him. The new Apprentice followed on closely behind him. No sign of the other two Inquisitors yet, but they would be on their way. Not that the Sith Lords would wait for them – hesitating when finally in striking-reach of a goal was not a Sith philosophy. Lord Vader halted next to her and stood examining the walls. He was impossible to read, but Fourth Sister thought he seemed to be satisfied. The Apprentice however went right up to the wall and put his hand on the duracrete, closing his eyes briefly. The Force pulsed, a sudden thing that caught her off guard and made the breath catch in her throat. She tried not to wince, show weakness that way, but she couldn't entirely stop herself. Luckily neither of the two seemed to notice. 

The Apprentice opened his eyes again, smiling. It was not something that filled the Fourth Sister with confidence. She knew far too little about him for her liking, and that made him dangerous. She didn't even know his real name, just that false one – 'Luke', not a Sith name – he had been using for the Rebels. Everyone knew what to expect from Lord Sidious and Lord Vader; their moods, their expectations. Not so for this new Sith. There were no guards near enough the Inquisitors' cells for them to overhear any gossip about him, and although Fourth Sister had been visited not long ago by the Twelfth Brother, who seemed to be in the good graces of the Apprentice, it wasn't as though she could ask _him._ He probably wouldn't tell the truth, for one thing. 

“This is the place,” the Apprentice said, with calm confidence. Fourth Sister wondered how he could be so sure. That use of the Force... it hadn't been the Dark Side. But it hadn't been the Light either. She knew what both felt like – how else to know what to avoid, or if Jedi artefacts were near? So what could it be? Some of the Force-sensitives the Inquisitorius ran across on the Outer Rim followed the barbarous customs of their home worlds which could lead to strange, wild capabilities. Perhaps that was where Lord Vader had dug this one up? 

“The entrance has been hidden,” Lord Vader remarked. 

“Yes,” the Apprentice replied. “But I can still feel it. I can find it.” 

Darth Vader nodded, allowing the other Sith to go first into the ruins and following closely on behind. Fourth Sister trailed a little back, following the wisdom that the optimal distance to be from a Sith Lord was just out of lightsaber reach. 

What were they looking for? She didn't know. She couldn't sense anything. But wasn't that just the point? Otherwise _she_ would be the Apprentice and this guy stuck back on his home planet, wherever that was. But as they proceeded deeper into the ruins she began to get that uncomfortable feeling again. The feeling that she shouldn't be here. Didn't belong here. But what nonsense; this was Arkanis! It was _their_ planet, or they had made it so. Alright, it was no Mustafar, but that was a place of trial, not a place to raise children. 

The remnants of buildings rose higher over their heads. The path that was a street became a corridor as the ruins swallowed them up; one moment mist and rain and the leaves of trees overhead, the next solid stone and darkness. Fourth Sister touched a finger to her helmet to activate its low-light vision. The Apprentice wasn't wearing anything like it, but he didn't seem to be having any trouble despite this. 

Eighth Brother and Sixth Sister were never going to catch up with them now. They would lose themselves in the maze of passageways which had branched off from the path they'd taken. More glory for her, Fourth Sister reflected, and more chance of being noticed – but that wasn't always a good thing. 

She felt a little nauseous, ill in a way she couldn't define. She kept thinking that something was moving in the corner of her eye, and turning her head to look – but each time there was nothing but empty space. It didn't seem to be affecting Lord Vader or the Apprentice, although even if it was neither would ever show it. But if there _was_ something malevolent lurking in the ruins it would have two Sith to get through before it ever got to her. Still, she moved a little closer to said Sith all the same. 

“It's a little like Vrogas Vas,” the Apprentice commented. “The temple is trying to push us away.”

Lord Vader did not reply, but nor did he offer a correction, so the Apprentice must be right. Fourth Sister didn't feel as though she were being influenced by the Force, but she tried to reach out, attune her senses as though listening for a distant sound... The wrongness, the nausea, intensified for a moment then slackened again. She could almost feel the shape of it, something unlike the familiar resonance of Dark or Light... 

There was something blocking the way ahead. The corridor seemed to end in a blank wall, a simple dead end. The Apprentice stopped in front of it, looking it up and down before saying, “This is it.”

It didn't look like anything at all to the Fourth Sister. 

Lord Vader held out a hand. The Darkness rippled and came rushing in, great and heaving and eager. The Apprentice copied the motion but as he did so it was not the Dark Side which answered his call. Fourth Sister winced away closing her eyes tightly, which did nothing to block out the vast and terrible Light which burst from the young man, spearing through the shadows of the Dark. It was like coming suddenly out of a tunnel and being struck by the glare of a sun right in front of you, only there was no turning away. She might have cried out, she couldn't be sure. 

Was this what a Jedi was like? She had never met one. If so, she could see what made them so frightening. 

Why was he doing this? More importantly, why was Lord Vader _letting_ him do this? In her confusion she was barely aware of the sound of stone grinding against stone. Someone said something to her, but the words wouldn't sort themselves into meaning inside her brain. 

A hand gripped her arm. She was being pulled forwards, and then the blinding horrible brilliance faded away. Breathing unsteadily, she pulled on the Dark and wrapped it around her like a blanket, or like a soothing bacta patch slapped onto a burn. 

“What happened?” someone was asking her. They sounded concerned, and with the Dark's heightened awareness of emotion she could tell it was genuine. “What's wrong?” 

The Fourth Sister opened her eyes. It was the Apprentice. He was the one still holding onto her arm, standing far too close. Instincts warred. Half of her was screaming to keep a Sith Lord at arm's length, the other insisting that making a great show of placid obedience would pacify the inevitable anger – probably. And all of it made worse and less certain by the simple fact that... he had used the Light. The end result was a kind of shocked stillness that had her mentally cursing herself. What was she, some prey animal that froze under a predator's gaze? She was an Inquisitor. She was better than this 

“You're really not alright,” the Apprentice said, with that same concern. It _felt_ real but she had seen him mimic emotions before, when he'd pulled on that mask of regret and horror to fool the Jedi padawan Leia Organa. It couldn't be real – why would he _care._

“I'm fine now my lord,” she said, feeling herself able to move again but not quite bold enough to pull herself away from his grasp. “We can proceed.”

The Apprentice hesitated. He didn't believe her. “You know, I never asked your name,” he said softly, taking a tack which surprised her. So he was going to talk around it until he tricked her into slipping and revealing something. “I'm sorry about that,” he continued. “I should have, but... I suppose I've been holding a grudge. Even if you _are_ on our side now.” He shot a glance over his shoulder at Darth Vader, almost as if the other Sith had made a comment... 

They were speaking mind-to-mind, she realised. Of course they were. She felt a little silly for not realising it before.

“I am the Fourth Sister,” she said, keeping her voice steady and monotone. She had told him this before, on the bridge of _Executor_ in the wake of his wrath, when the only choice had seemed to be speaking up or inevitable death. 

The Apprentice smiled. “I meant your _real_ name,” he said. “The one from before.”

She blinked, not quite understanding the question. “I don't have a name,” she said. He'd never been an Inquisitor, had come from some hole on the Outer Rim, so perhaps he really didn't know. “I haven't earned one yet.”

Again that concern, as though she'd said something that bothered him. “But surely before you became an Inquisitor you must have been called something...”

“Not that I remember,” the Fourth Sister said, taking refuge in honesty. 

The Apprentice took this in. “But don't you want one?” he asked. 

Was he taunting her? “More than anything,” she said. “But I haven't _earned_ it.”

“But... there's nothing you call yourself? Inside your head?”

Now he was definitely trying to trip her up. “No.” 

Another glance exchanged between the Apprentice and Lord Vader, another moment of silent communication. The young man seemed to relent a little. “You looked like you were going to pass out there for a moment, or be sick. Was it something to do with the Temple...?”

The Fourth Sister felt certain that he would know it if she lied. Well, that and she couldn't think of anything believable. But could she really get away with calling him on using the Light Side? It wasn't as though Darth Vader could have missed it. But _he_ was the one who had done something he shouldn't have. “It was the Light,” she said finally. “It was so bright and... I wasn't expecting it.” She tensed, waiting for the moment he would turn angry, turn vengeful. 

Instead he looked dismayed and, if anything, even more concerned. “The Light Side affected you like _that_?” he said. “But it never has before...”

“You are stronger now,” Lord Vader said, adding to the conversation for the first time. 

The Apprentice turned to him. “Yes, but...” Then he shook his head, and looked back at the Fourth Sister. “I'm sorry.” She tried to contain her surprise, but not very successfully. “The Temple here uses both the Light Side and the Dark to keep people out. We had to use both to raise the door-stones out of the way and get us inside.”

Fourth Sister blinked. She had barely thought about their surroundings, too focused on this utterly surreal conversation, but... they weren't in that corridor anymore. This was a room, a hall – some kind of antechamber. There was no sign of any entrance in the wall by which they were standing. Low-light vision threw their surroundings up in shades of green; a high ceiling, empty alcoves to left and right, the opening through to the temple proper and the rows of pillars that could just be glimpsed there.

“Enough of this,” Lord Vader said, clearly losing patience. Fourth Sister suppressed a flinch. _She_ wasn't the one who had been delaying them with all these questions. 

“Yes father,” the Apprentice said with a sigh. The blood ran cold in the Fourth Sister's veins. 

So much now made sense – Vader's leniency, his reasoning in choosing this man, his _son_ , as the new Apprentice – but equally this raised dozens more questions in her mind. How... but this wasn't the time to think about it. That could wait until she was back in _Executor's_ brig and had the space to really get her mind around this without any distractions. 

Lord Vader was already striding away, further into the temple. The Apprentice followed him, and Fourth Sister ended up trailing along behind. Now they had found this place she realised she didn't even know what they were searching for. She'd assumed it was just the temple itself, confirming its existence with a view to expunging it from the planet. It wasn't Sith, so that meant it was a threat. Probably Jedi, she had assumed before, but if so then it didn't make any sense having to use both sides of the Force to get inside. Something else then. Some long-ago Force-users from Arkanis itself. Was it knowledge then? Simply curiosity? Artefacts, maybe even a holocron?

The next room was vast, pillars stretching away in all directions. The Apprentice walked forwards as if in a dream, drawn towards a shadowy shape off in the distance. As they drew nearer, the Fourth Sister saw it was a statue. She gave it a once-over and dismissed it as uninteresting. Whatever significance it might have had a thousand years ago or more, it couldn't be relevant now. 

“No water,” the Apprentice said, sounding disappointed. “It's the same but... not.”

“Visions are not always to be taken literally,” Vader told him. 

So now visions were involved? She tried to tamp down on a sudden surge of jealousy. That was the kind of power she wanted. The true power of the Sith, to see the future, predict it and change it, force it to their will. To remake the world in their image. Those were the secrets the Lords of the Sith held dear, the ones she would one day be worthy of. 

“Alkamar said it might be a clue...” the Apprentice said thoughtfully. Who might that be, the Fourth Sister wondered? “So if we follow the path I took...” He set off again. A minute or two of walking brought them up against another wall. They had reached the bounds of this massive space. 

“Somewhere around here...” the Apprentice said, thinking aloud. He ran his hands over the stone in front of him. The Force pooled and shuddered around him again, not that horrible, blinding Light, but the same unfamiliar power that he had used at the outskirts of the ruins. Something rumbled. Dust drifted down from far overhead. 

Slowly a section of the stone slid inwards, and then away to one side. The Apprentice stepped away from the wall looking satisfied. 

“Hopefully now we'll find what we're looking for,” he said. 

\----

**1 ABY – SSD _Executor_ , Arkanis system, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

Firmus Piett was used to difficult questions, even the ones which he had to ask himself. This one though... this one was more of a problem than most. How far did he trust Darth Vader? Even the thought of it was unpleasant. He had come this far on the strength of his faith in the man and his vision for a new and better Empire, so far that it was too late now to even consider turning back. And he was not thinking of doing _that_ even now. 

But it was troubling to realise that there were parts of his plan that Vader was keeping from all the rest of them. More than just military details which was understandable, but the very shape of the galaxy to come. There hadn't been the breath of a clue about his intentions to put his son on the throne. 

Piett had yet to decide how he felt about _that_. He still knew little about the young man in question. He knew he had great power, having witnessed as much when the boy had killed the Inquisitor and turned _Executor's_ guns on the three Star Destroyers standing in the way of escape. But what about his character, his politics – both far more important and relevant to the business of ruling. 

Luke Skywalker had once been a rebel, and perhaps even the rebel pilot responsible for the Death Star's destruction. So he was a radical, one not afraid to use violent means to express his point. This was not in itself a disadvantage. There was plenty to change about the Empire, but Piett refused to accept the Rebel Alliance doctrine that the structure itself was flawed. _Their_ laughable concept of government would leave the galaxy in anarchy and nothing else. But did Commander Skywalker believe that? Or was he more sensible. 

Vader would not give his son power if he didn't trust the boy to be able to use it. And he had been a defender of the Empire for too long for Piett to believe he would turn his back on it now. The Empire _wasn't_ the Emperor, no matter what official doctrine might say. The Empire was its people. Everyone who went to bed at night a little safer than they had done under the Republic. Vader understood that. The other Captains who had joined them understood that. Skywalker _had_ to understand that or he wouldn't be here. 

There was another question plaguing Piett, and it was whether he should speak to anyone else about what he knew. A confidante and someone to share his concerns with would have made him feel a lot better, but whom of the other officers could he trust with such sensitive information. He knew none of them, could not call any of them particular friends. And Lord Vader was keeping all of this quiet for a reason. 

He couldn't risk it. 

At least the situation down on Arkanis had been fixed. The new Commandant was in place and they had finally been given the go-ahead to start loading stormtroopers onto _Executor_. They were green and untested soldiers, but with these war games on the horizon and General Veers eager to whip them into shape, they shouldn't be any liability when the war began in earnest. 

And that would be soon. The Emperor didn't know where they were, but that couldn't last. There must be scouts and probe droids scouring the galaxy looking for them, and one would stumble across them eventually. But let them come. Piett had confidence in his ship, his crew, and in their fleet. They would be ready for them. 

\----

**1 ABY – HoloNet Station THX-1138, Christophsis**

Aphra gently slotted a databoard into the disembowelled guts of the computer she had been tasked with repairing, suppressing a sigh. She was, frankly, bored out of her skull. The HoloNet station's previous repair technician, who had been very surprised at her unanticipated and unasked for arrival and who had quickly after suffered a tragic accident when he'd fallen into the waste reclaimator in Maintenance, had been a lazy kriffing nerf. The outdated systems here had been laughably jury-rigged with substandard parts – presumably the man had been buying them on the cheap and stuffing his pockets with the leftover credits. It meant there was plenty for her to do, but all of it was scutwork. Dull. Unimportant. She more than knew her way around any electronic system you cared to name, software and hardware both, but if she'd had any interest in this kind of nonsense she wouldn't have taken up roaming the galaxy looking for ancient weapons and droids. 

Please, Force, let Lord Vader contact her soon. 

At least Bee-Tee and Triple-Zero were behaving themselves. At least mostly; the head of marketing had gone mysteriously missing a week ago, not that anyone cared. And there were fewer custodial staff around these days, but they were all aliens, slaves or as good as, managed by an independent contractor with some vague connection to the Hutts, so again to everyone here it was someone else's problem. Eventually though the assassin droid would run out of the forgettable and unwanted, and then there would be trouble. 

She could order them to stop, but in some ways that would be more trouble that it was worth. 

Aphra closed the computer up and booted it up for testing, running on autopilot. She knew more about this place by now than she wanted to. Strictly speaking, repair techs weren't meant to be able to access all the data files on a computer or dataslate without its owner's permission, but obviously she paid no attention to a silly little rule like that. As a matter of course HoloNet reporters and station management were all COMPNOR agents and everything they produced nothing but propaganda, but their status came with a bonus of unrestricted HoloNet access. So many nasty secrets. Mostly pornographic, occasionally criminal, and more rarely, seditious. If it had been necessary Aphra could have ruined these people a dozen times over. 

But that wasn't what she was here for. The files she had been looking for had been schematics and blueprints for the station and its defences, plus guard schedules and other useful details. Of course the hope was that none of this would be necessary. When _Executor_ dropped out of hyperspace and evaporated the Christophsis Defence Fleet – a rather grand name to give a simple trio of Star Destroyers – she would spring into action alongside Bee-Tee and Triple-Zero. If they positioned themselves right this should be a bloodless coup. 

If they had just been trying to destroy this station, a few minutes of turbolaser barrage would have put paid to it, but they needed it and all its delicate communications equipment to be in one piece and fully functional. Hence, once she took the guys in charge hostage and lowered the shields, a boarding party would come across and make sure Lord Vader's announcement went smoothly. The subtle modifications Aphra herself had been making to every system in the place would give them complete and total control over the HoloNet for just long enough, overriding it with long-forgotten emergency wartime protocols that no-one had been smart enough to clear out since the end of the Clone Wars. It wasn't quite what Lord Vader's examples had done, but Aphra had her pride. She was going to do this _her_ way – and it would work just as well, if not better. 

Her commlink beeped. Aphra looked at it and went still. That was it. That was the code. It was almost time. 

Lord Vader was coming.


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Christophsis Defence Force is not having a good day, and Vader's grand speech runs into unforseen problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: mind control, torture, brainwashing
> 
> A note about space warfare and the tactics Vader uses in this chapter. In ESB at the battle of Hoth, Ozzel gets choked out for bringing Death Squadron out of hyperspace too _close_ to the planet, rather than too far away. Which presumably indicates they meant to approach stealthily so that they could establish a blockade, or some kind of Hoth encircling manoeuvre while not giving the Rebels any time to prepare or evacuate. I am guessing that they couldn't have come out even closer to Hoth because of gravitation fields, or something along those lines, which meant Ozzel gave them the worst of both worlds. 
> 
> The point is that I'm assuming these 'silent running' tactics are an accepted thing in the Imperial Navy.

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis system, Outer Rim Territories **

Leia thought she might be losing her grip on reality. In the first few days after the others had been set free things weren’t too bad. It was lonely without anyone to speak to yes, without quiet companionship at the very least, but it had been manageable. She had coped. But as time went on with nothing to mark the passage of days but food shoved through the door it became harder and harder to hold onto any sort of hope. If things continued on the way they had been, then she could be here alone for a very long time. The possibility was almost intolerable. Humans weren’t meant to be cut off from social contact for so long - she was no exception to this rule. 

It wasn’t as if the Empire had any respect for sentient’s rights anyway, so why should Vader’s version of it be any different? Being related to him only meant he wasn’t going to kill her, but it was no guarantee of anything else and particularly not when treating her like this might lead to the very thing he most wanted; that she fall to the Dark Side. Torture was certainly within the Empire’s remit, and even if she had managed to hold out against the more overt kind before Leia knew well enough that she wouldn’t have been able to do so forever. No-one could. This… this was much more insidious, and if it was slower well, Vader had all the time in the world. 

Leia found herself taking refuge in the Force more and more often. Meditation had been a struggle at first - a starship was a far cry from a planet bursting with nature and life - but practise made it easier to fall into every day. The Light Side helped to quiet her emotions and it put her in touch with the world around her outside the bounds of this small room. The minds of thousands upon thousands of stormtroopers and officers weren’t the kind of company she wanted, but a starving woman couldn’t be choosy. She didn’t need to dip into any of them or try to make out their thoughts. Existing in the gentle wash and murmur of the ship’s mental ecosystem was enough to keep a thread of her sanity and ease the gaping need for simple human contact. 

And she had her brother. It was so easy now to find Luke wherever he was, whether that was on board _Executor_ itself or down on the planet below. They didn’t necessarily talk across this strange connection, but just knowing that he was there was comforting. Sometimes it was almost as though Leia could look out through his eyes, experiencing what he was experiencing at a slight remove. 

At least Luke had confronted Vader about this plan to make him the Emperor. He hadn’t _won_ the argument, but he had still tried. Leia had done her best not to doubt him and think that some part of Luke might want the power he was being offered, but after all these constant upheavals and revelations it had been getting hard to trust anything. She needn't have worried though. What Luke had said to Vader proved that he genuinely didn’t want to be Emperor. 

Leia had picked up some of what Luke and Vader’s plans were going forward. They were going to travel to the nearby Christophsis system so that Vader could make some kind of address or rallying call to the Empire at large. It would be an official start to the civil war - and could only serve as a signal to the Alliance as well. For that much she was glad it would happen, but apart from that she didn't really care. In fact she was more interested in finding out from Luke what he had learned down on Arkanis. There had been a temple down there - one belonging to these ancient Force-sensitive people her brother seemed to respect so highly. Leia still didn’t trust them in the slightest, but the part of her that had always loved history couldn’t help but be a little fascinated. What had they really been like, their ideals, their culture, their way of life? Luke had found some sort of cache within the temple - physical items as well as databank files - and they had been brought up to _Executor._ As of yet Luke hadn’t had time to go through them as far as she was aware, but once he did Leia was going to demand he visit. 

If she was going to be stuck here until she thought of a proper escape plan, she might as well have some kind of entertainment to pass the time. 

\----

**1 ABY – ISD- _Vulpine,_ Christophsis, Savareen Sector, Outer Rim**

Patrol duty in the Christophsis system was a quiet one, Commodore Alexis Thorn reflected. The planet had never entirely recovered from the Clone Wars. Many of its cities lay as nothing but abandoned ruins, those who had lived there dead or long gone, but the Mining Guilds had been quick to return to their work after peace was declared. Their choice in backing the Separatists had been easy enough to remedy in the eyes of the Empire by the resignation of their Board of Directors. Money was money, resources were resources, and the Empire wasn't so foolish as to stand in the way of what it itself needed. And more than that, Christophsis lay on a major hyperspace trade route. Many passed through here, not all of them on legitimate business.

Not that catching smugglers had anything to do with her _official_ duties. It was beneath the dignity of a senior officer of the Empire and a waste of the might of a Star Destroyer. They had civilian contractors for that sort of thing. But to appease the civilians in charge of the mining operations – civilians with deep pockets – the forces stationed here under her command assisted the local planetary police fleet with their operations where necessary. It would not reflect well on her either, she had to admit, if criminal scum – or worse, rebels who certainly were her concern – slipped through under her watch.

Christophsis was blessed in its lack of rebels, and Thorn was grateful for that. The same could not be said of many of the Empire's worlds in this time of turmoil. She had served the Imperial Navy for two decades now, and the Republic Navy for almost as long before that, and had little interest in trying to make a name for herself outside of what she had already gained. That was a game for young, ambitious idiots. Advancement in the Empire's forces was a fickle beast and it was all too easy to become a victim of your own success. No, she was happy out here, on the boundary of the Outer and Mid Rim. Quiet, quaint, but not so far from civilisation that she'd had to give up all comforts. Besides, she would be thinking of retirement soon.

Something pinged on a screen in the pit to her left. Thorn strode the few steps necessary to look down on it. “Something I should know about Midshipman?” she asked.

“Just one of the hyperspace buoys on the fritz again sir,” came the reply, as the midshipman tapped furiously at her keypad. “We've been having a few issues with them lately, old tech you know, and they technically belong to the Mining Guild anyway so one of their civilian techs went out to take a look at them and said...”

Thorn held up a hand to stop the nervous flow of words. “Enough,” she said. “I have no need to know the minutiae. Even if this is only a simple ghost signal, duty behoves us to make sure no-one is trying to slip into the system undetected.” And it was certainly most likely that the midshipman was right. The hyperspace buoy network was part of the system defences dating back pre-Clone Wars – not that it had done much to save them from the Separatists. It had never been replaced or updated since, but since it was functional there had been no need. And the Empire would not pay to set up its own network when a perfectly good civilian one already existed to co-opt and foist the maintenance costs off onto its original owners. “Send a TIE patrol out.”

“Yes Commodore.”

Thorn nodded and turned her attention away. Alpha Shift was dragging on, and she was minded to hand the conn over to her First Officer for a few hours so she could get something to eat in the privacy of her quarters. The Christophsis HoloNet hub had to be broadcasting something of at least vague interest...

A couple of TIE fighters streaked out of the hanger bay, mere dots against _Vulpine's_ hull before disappearing into the black backdrop of space. It would take them a good few hours to reach the system's boundary that the buoy network marked. She could plan her return to match their report – it was likely to be the most exciting thing to happen today, which was honestly as she liked it.

\----

**1 ABY – HoloNet Station THX-1138, Christophsis, Savareen Sector, Outer Rim**

Aphra checked her datapad again under the guise of looking up a set of schematics for the air conditioning unit she was meant to be repairing. She had received another message on her comm just over an hour ago, a subtle narrow-bandwidth ping from the outskirts of the system to let her know that Lord Vader's forces had just dropped out of hyperspace. They would be approaching under the cover of sublight engines, 'running dark'. Military ships – ironically much like smuggler's ships, albeit slightly better designed for it – had systems tuned to avoid detection by most scanners or receivers. Using them meant going without active shields or weapons until the last moment, but the whole point was in not actually needing them until that time. The message had also included a countdown, and it was this that she was checking. Not long now.

What a lucky thing for her that the air con unit in the station's central control booth had broken down today! And that it was taking so long for her to fix. Of course, it had broken because she'd had Triple-Zero sneak in the day before and sabotage it. If any of these idiots had known the first thing about simple mechanics they would have been able to have it up and running again themselves in about fifteen minutes, but no-one here had the first idea about how to do _anything_.

Aphra climbed down the ladder and rummaged in her toolbox, trying to look thoughtful and puzzled while listening in to the conversation the other two occupants of the room were having. She was pretty sure they were discussing something she wasn't meant to hear but working maintenance was almost like being a droid – people forgot you were there and that you had ears. She might as well have been a piece of unusually mobile furniture.

Not that it was all that interesting. Just gossip from the Imperial Court, and probably not anything like accurate given how far they were from the Core. Potentially valuable if sold on to the right person, but that had never been the sort of merchandise Aphra traded in.

She checked the pad again. It wasn't that she was nervous. No, obviously not. This wasn't her first time hostage-taking... Besides these were soft civilians, they wouldn't resist. Triple-Zero and Bee-Tee wouldn't be getting any fun down in the broadcasting studio.

Blood-less, like she'd said. Not long now.

\----

**1 ABY – ISD- _Vulpine,_ Christophsis, Savareen Sector, Outer Rim**

Commodore Thorn was on her way back to the bridge when her comm pinged. It was her First Officer. She couldn't imagine what might have happened that he wasn't able to deal with – the man was very capable: steady and by-the-book, which was not a fault in this kind of military role.

“Yes?” she asked, answering the call.

“Commodore...” First Officer Mavraan looked unsettled. “We've lost contact with one of our TIE patrols – the one you sent to investigate the malfunctioning hyperspace buoy.”

Thorn frowned. “Then perhaps it was no malfunction,” she said. “It's a bold smuggler who dares fire on Imperial fighters.” In the back of her head, she added; or not a smuggler at all. They were overdue for some kind of Rebel activity out here. It seemed every day that the HoloNet distributed more news of fighting across the vast sickle of the Outer Rim Territories – distributed under military clearances of course, no need to panic law-abiding citizens or give those less loyal _ideas._ Hit and run mostly, the guerilla tactics of partisans or terrorists. “What is the last known location we have for them?” she asked.

“Sending to you now sir.”

A holomap of the Christophsis system bloomed into being, projected over her comm unit. Thorn studied it carefully. The blinking orange trail through the sheen of blue that mapped out the TIEs' path ended a lot closer than she was at all happy with. Sudden paranoia cast up visions of a Rebel Fleet drifting silently through space towards them – and much as they might like to pretend otherwise, Christophsis – or rather her mining industry – was a target of military value. Hence the three Star Destroyers stationed here under Thorn's command.

“Signal Captain Quan and Captain Tiiat,” she ordered. “Amber alert. Bring them back from the outer asteroid fields and into formation.” She would feel a lot more secure with the ISD- _Reaper_ and the ISD- _Corona_ at her side. “I'm returning to the bridge. In the meantime, I want active sensor sweeps of the area, and release probe droids as well.” Tiny as they were they were harder to spot than a TIE fighter. They should survive long enough to give them some idea of what they were up against.

By the time Commodore Thorn reached the bridge, the amber alert siren was sounding its deep threatening pulses, just loud enough that it couldn't be ignored but not so intrusive as to be a distraction. There was a thrum of activity from the console pits. She strode to her place on the walkway between them and waited for Mavraan to join her.

“Situation report,” she ordered.

“ _Reaper_ and _Corona_ are an hour and half-an-hour out respectively,” he told her. Bad news, but no more than she might have expected. The millenia-past clear-up of the system had removed all asteroidal or cometary bodies from anywhere near the planet, which had been a boon for the inhabitants of Christophsis but less so for the convenience of mining operations. Those were out in deep space – and so were the Star Destroyers protecting them. Right in the midst of too much space-junk to risk a hyperspace mini-jump back. “Scans aren't picking anything up as of yet, but...”

“Wait! Something on visual sweep Commodore!” It was one of the Lieutenants – Prinn, she thought.

“On the main screen,” she ordered, and was startled when instead of the starscape she had expected to see the screen flicked instead to a view of Christophsis, with her moon just having crested the planet's horizon. “Where...” she started to say, and then she saw it. Rounding the moon itself, a small patch of movement in the darkness. A bright dagger catching the sun and edged in very faint light. The glow of ion engines. “I see it,” she said darkly. “How close is it to the moon itself? Magnify.” She didn't voice the thought, but surely it could not be as big as it appeared?

The image changed, bringing the strange ship closer. It looked... Imperial. Or at least the design did, but that elongated dagger-shape didn't match any known vessel of theirs that Thorn knew about. And if it were Imperial, it would not have approached in secrecy as it had, using the moon to cover its final approach. A clever gambit, but they had spotted her all the same.

“It's big, sir,” the same Lieutenant replied. “Calculating its trajectory, it...”

He never had time to finish his sentence. Blue light flashed, and then again. Thorn recognised the weapons discharge as that of ion cannons, capital ship class, and was already barking orders to the helm, cutting across her junior officer's words. But even though the distance the shots had to cross was vast, _Vulpine's_ orbital trajectory didn't allow for swift manoeuvring. Energy crackled across her shields, jumping from segment to segment and bring them each down in turn. Then the second wave of shots hit. The screen went dead along with every light and half the computers, even hardened as they were. The only illumination came from the half-circle of Christophsis itself visible through the viewports. At least grav and life support were still running.

“How long until we're back online?” Commodore Thorn demanded. They were fish in a barrel like this – the enemy ship, whatever it was, could simply walk its turbolasers up and down their hull until they were little more than a slowly expanding cloud of debris.

“Twenty minutes,” someone said – too dark to see who, and she didn't recognise the voice.

Silence spread across the bridge like a slow poison. Every one of them knew it; twenty minutes was a death sentence.

Except... none came. Nothing else hit them. Thorn strode over to the viewports, peering out at the stars. Where was the damn thing? What kind of Rebel attack was this – and it had to be them. No criminals, not even organised ones like Black Sun or the Hutt clans, had the kind of fire-power that could immobilise a Star Destroyer in two volleys. Not that the Rebels did either so far as anyone knew, but with the Mon Cala shipyards now at their disposal after the disastrous failure of a campaign in that sector...

Perhaps the ship only _had_ ion cannons? If it was specialised, focusing all of its power output into them with little to spare for shields or other weaponry, it would explain its effectiveness. If so, then that left only one possibility – a boarding party. The Rebel Alliance would probably like to get its hands on a Star Destroyer to add to its fleet. Thorn glanced over at the ship-wide comms control, hoping it still might be functional. But luck was not with her there. The panel was as dead as everything else. She could do nothing, only stare out of the viewports trying to catch a glimpse of whatever might be coming their way.

The bridge-tower wasn't best placed to get that side-view of the moon the screen had been showing prior to the enemy firing. What she could see though was the glint of Christophsis' orbitals, the various satellites and stations, the largest and nearest of which was the HoloNet station. Did they know what was going on yet, she wondered? Had they seen their protector suffer that devastating blow, lose power? Were they panicking right now?

The view was starting to change already. The engines on an Imperial Star Destroyer couldn't be shut down by something like an ion cannon blast. They were not so delicate. But without any of the control systems to tell them what to do, they would not be able to make the minute adjustments required to maintain orbit, merely staying on the trajectory and power they'd been on when the cannon hit. And that was slowly but surely taking them away from Christophsis.

Another glint caught her eye. The sun on metal. She focused in on the sight.

Were those Lamba shuttles? They certainly had that tri-winged, blunt-nosed look about them, but of course it was impossible to be entirely sure at this distance. And more likely it was her eyes playing tricks on her, a failure of simple pattern recognition choosing what was familiar to her over what was not. But what was certain was that the ships were not heading for the ISD- _Vulpine,_ but for the HoloNet station. Their trajectory was unmistakable.

What was this all about? Why board that station? It was a civilian target, not a military one. It didn't have any particularly useful intelligence, or anything else anyone might want. Now that _Vulpine_ had her fangs pulled – at least momentarily – they were being totally ignored. She supposed that even when they recovered the enemy ship would just use its ion cannons on her again, but what about when _Reaper_ and _Corona_ arrived? No single vessel could survive three Imperial Star Destroyers working in concert.

Viciously irritated at her lack of knowledge, Commodore Thorn clenched her jaw and tightened her hands into fists at the small of her back. Someone was going to pay for this.

\----

**1 ABY – Lamba Shuttle _Arctir_ , approaching HoloNet Station THX-1138**

Commander Dogma slapped the clip of his seat's webbing to open it up and stood as the light above the ramp changed from red to green. The ride over from _Executor_ had been smooth sailing, even the landing in the hangar bay. There had been no need for evasive action, for which he was thankful. Dogma had experienced enough of General Skywalker's aggressive flying during the Clone Wars to never want to experience any more of it again. Lord Vader's plan was going just as it had been intended though – not that he would ever have doubted that.

The ramp hissed downwards. Dogma led the way out into the station, blaster held up and moving as he scanned the large open space for any sign of resistance. There was none. Only a few nervous-looking civilians, frozen in place and clearly unsure whether they ought to be running away. To his left and right squads were disembarking from the other two shuttles. A force just shy of sixty – a score of clones and twice that of regular troopers – was more than enough to take this place. They were not expecting to have to fight very hard for it, admittedly, but it paid to expect the unexpected.

Dogma had not asked why he and his brothers specifically had been chosen for the squad Lord Vader was leading. He surmised it was a question of loyalty. Through one means or another every soldier of every stripe aboard _Executor_ had been informed of the new direction Lord Vader was taking them in. Most had accepted that. Those who had not were smart enough not to talk about it. But given the potential, however small, for a stormtrooper to decide they came down on the Emperor's side rather than Lord Vader's... eliminating that possibility was a clear and simple necessity. And thus Dogma and his _vode_ were performing an operation in hostile territory for the first time in he couldn't remember how long.

It felt good. He had never resented Vjun, but... this was good.

A hand-signal had his brothers forming up around him, an honour-guard for Lord Vader who was even now striding down the ramp behind them, his son following at his shoulder along with his pet Inquisitor and those damned tame hssiss. _This_ made the civvies sit up and take notice, although not relax any. Even if Vader's presence marked them as definitely Imperial and therefore nothing they ought to have to worry about, the Emperor's half-mythic enforcer showing up unannounced couldn't herald anything good for them.

Lord Vader led the way further into the station, and with another sharp hand-signal from Dogma the clones were moving after him. Sharp as on a parade-ground, Dogma thought to himself proudly. He hadn't let any of them get lazy on Vjun.

The shuttles locked down behind them. No-one would exit or enter until their return.

There was no sign of security on the way to their destination. Someone would have been watching when the local Star Destroyer went dark, and they wouldn't have missed the approach of the Lambda shuttles either. But Vader had an agent placed within the broadcasting station. When they tried to do something to protect themselves, the station's security would have found themselves powerless. Locked out of every system. It was for their own good. Trying to fight would only get them killed; an utter waste of life.

There were more civvies in the corridors as they passed by. The inevitable reaction on seeing a military force was to duck into the nearest doorway, or press themselves against the walls if no such aperture presented itself. One or two were bold or arrogant enough to try and speak to them, but having a blaster pointed at their face had them backing away. Before long the strike force was at their destination. Someone was waiting for them.

Dogma scowled. He recognised the woman. That smuggler Vader had brought to Vjun with the Inquisitor. Doctor Aphra. She was smirking, and leaning against the heavy blast doors now blocking their way.

“I'm so happy to see you again boss,” she said. Dogma grit his teeth. She hadn't earned the right to that kind of camaraderie – he doubted she was _capable_ of earning it. But Lord Vader tolerated her disrespect. For now, and only while she was useful, he consoled himself. Eventually that would end and she could be disposed of.

“Aphra,” Lord Vader nodded in greeting. “You have been successful?”

“Of course!” the smuggler said. “And Triple-Zero and BeeTee have everything under control inside. We can begin broadcasting whenever you want.”

Commander Skywalker winced. “Casualties?” he asked. He wasn't comfortable with the idea, Dogma noticed. If the young man was squeamish, he'd work past that soon enough. The Padawans usually had. Anyway, he'd been happy enough to kill before, in defence of Lord Vader.

“Eh, maybe,” Aphra replied, with a vague gesture. She didn’t look entirely at ease either. The Commander's expression turned frosty. “What?” the smuggler said. “You know what those two are like! They... took the initiative.”

“Open the door,” Lord Vader commanded, before the conversation could deteriorate into an argument. Aphra saluted, sloppily, and typed in the code for the doors. The massive sheets of durasteel hissed apart.

The signs of recent violence were clear and unmistakable. Scorched and melted metal on the walls from close-range blaster bolts and perhaps even a small flamethrower, the occasional spray of blood, broken consoles and screens from the kinetic impacts of bodies being thrown around... and in the centre of it all two droids turning to look at them as they came in. A few terrified civvies knelt on the floor behind the clankers, shivering, some crying. Dogma felt his lip curl in an instinctive snarl of distaste. Old war memories were pushing into the front of his mind.

“Ah, Master Vader,” the droid that looked like a protocol unit said, raising one hand in greeting. A hand, Dogma noted, tipped with needle-sharp blades. “These organics should be sufficient to operate the broadcast systems. The rest were surplus, and have therefore been eliminated.”

“That was not my command,” Lord Vader replied. Dogma tensed, bring his blaster up very slightly.

“Your command was not specific,” the droid replied. “This was simply... taking the initiative. The remains are over there, if you require them for any reason.” It gestured behind a row of terminals. Aphra was the only one who moved to look, leaning over the partition of screens.

“They're dead alright,” she said. “Very thoroughly. I swear, I step out for ten minutes...”

“This didn't need to happen,” Commander Skywalker said, almost desperately. “There was no need to kill them!” He was not wrong, Dogma thought.

“I beg to differ,” the protocol droid said, the astromech next to it beeping eager agreement. “They have far more utility now than they ever did before...”

“What is done cannot be undone,” Lord Vader said, silencing the clanker, and his son. “Set up the broadcast.”

“You heard the boss,” Aphra said to the droids. “Get out of the way and let these people work.”

With an obvious reluctance, the two moved off to the side of the studio – the side where they had piled the bodies of the dead, Dogma noted. These deviant machines were worse than the smuggler. They ought to be deactivated at the first opportunity. Seeing some small measure of safety, the civvies started to relax a little. One, in the psuedo-military dress of a HoloNews reporter, shakily got to her feet, leaning against a nearby desk for support.

“Lord Vader,” she said, in a voice that was slightly hoarse, “Sir. I don't... understand what this is all about.”

“I am making an announcement,” Vader stated. “And you will facilitate it.”

“We are at your disposal of course milord but _why...”_ The words stuck in her throat. Her eyes darted over to the clankers – to the corpses. Her hands, held out to the sides in a pose of surrender, were shaking.

Lord Vader did not immediately answer. Instead Aphra spoke up, from where she was now fiddling with a console near the wall. “Control,” she said, as easily as discussing the weather. “Convenience. Secrecy. Eliminating any potential nasty surprises. What does it matter?”

Commander Skywalker hissed something under his breath; a Huttese curse if Dogma had heard correctly. “Stop that Aphra,” he snapped. “This is _your_ fault!”

“And where do you get that idea Junior?”

“This was your mission. The droids were following _your_ orders as well as my... as Lord Vader's.” Dogma wasn't sure why he'd bothered catching himself before he could speak the truth. It was no secret now in their own forces, and couldn't stay one for long to the rest of the galaxy either.

The smuggler shrugged, but it was clear she couldn't meet the Commander's eyes. “Then you can blame me later,” she said, with the same light-hearted tone. Perhaps it was no more than bravado. “Right now, my part is done.” She slapped the console in front of her softly. “And we have better things to be doing.” It was irritating, but she was right. This was a military operation, and the time for post-action analysis was just that. Discipline did not permit arguments or apportioning blame when it would inevitably impede their goals.

“You are functional?” Lord Vader said, addressing the small group of civvies.

“Yes sir,” the reporter said, taking a deep breath and getting herself under control again. “Is this going to be going out live...” Vader nodded. The reporter straightened her rumpled uniform and turned to the rest of the small group, speaking to them softly. Offering comfort and perhaps some measure of steadiness. It got them up and moving though, brushing debris off worktops and consoles and beginning all the minutiae of getting this place working.

“Sound system's up and running,” the reporter said under her breath, then looked up. “If you'd like to stand up there my lord...” She gestured to an open patch of floor surrounded by a number of holoprojectors. “I'm afraid the only camera-droid is...” with a shudder she indicated the smaller of the two clankers in the corner. “We had another one but it went missing not long after that thing showed up.” It was plain she didn't want it anywhere near her, and Dogma couldn't blame her. It might be one of Lord Vader's tools but he didn't trust it farther than he could throw it.

“You heard her,” Aphra said sardonically. “Back to work BeeTee, you slacker.”

The droid warbled, a noise distorted with an edge of static, but wheeled itself over obediently. The head portion broke apart, revealing shadows and outlines that Dogma identified as significant amounts of weaponry before one particular item was selected from the depths and flipped outwards. He eyed it suspiciously, but it didn't seem to be anything more than what it looked like – a simple holocamera.

One of the other civvies looked down at his screen. “The connection's complete,” he said, not quite stuttering.

Lord Vader swept into the centre of the open space, his cape fluttering with the sudden movement, and stood with his hands on his hips, thumbs tucked into the belt from which his lightsaber hung, silver-bright against black. “Begin,” he ordered. The holoprojectors whirred to life, although they weren't showing anything at present. The clanker's camera flight flashed on.

At her own terminal, Aphra hit a button and gave a thumbs-up sign.

“People of the galaxy,” Vader said, his low baritone rumble giving weight to every word. “Citizens of the Empire. You have been deceived. The man who calls himself your Emperor has lied to you, as he has lied to me and countless others. The harsh measures we have taken on his behalf, at his command, are not serving to bring us peace, nor to protect you, but to serve his own ends. The strength and order the Empire has brought to the galaxy is at risk of falling to ruin – and he does not care. His only concern is his own power and ambition.”

For a moment he stopped. A pause to allow this to sink into the minds of those who were watching – and perhaps to allow them in their surprise and excitement to call others to watch as well. Dogma glanced around. This was not news to him or to any of the clones, but he could see it had hit the civvies hard. Ashen faces and wide eyes were all turned to Lord Vader. It seemed they were barely breathing.

“The Emperor and his policies no longer serve the Empire or the galaxy,” Vader continued. “I have seen it. So have others. Duty to the Empire now calls for a change – one I intend to see through to the end. The Emperor will be removed from power so that one more suited to the task can take his place. This is now a war. Choose your side with care.”

It had been a short speech – but it had not needed to be any longer. The point had been made, bluntly, honestly – and Dogma was sure the people of the galaxy would believe it if only because of whom it was coming from. Whether they would then do anything about it...

“Feed's been cut,” Aphra announced, from her station. “It went through though. Out far and wide for every sentient to hear, military channels, civilian channels... even ISB if I got my codes right.” She grinned – a wolfish expression.

“Good,” Vader said. “Then we are...”

He stopped abruptly. One of the holoprojectors was still on. The quad-lenses, washed in blue, flickered as it began to project. A face, hooded, appeared in the air in front of Lord Vader.

“Hey!” Aphra snapped, turning back to her console and glaring at it furiously. “Someone's over-riding the systems. Hacking us from the opposite direction!”

“Your little _pet_ is correct,” the hooded figure said, and a shiver ran up Dogma's spine as he recognised the voice. It could have been anyone under the robe, but that voice was unmistakable.

“Darth Sidious,” Lord Vader said, his voice flatter than even the vocoder normally made it.

“Do you think yourself powerful enough to no longer call _me_ Master?” the Emperor said. Little of his face could be made out in the shadows of his hood, and the hologram was not of the best quality either. Distortion from the great distance the signal had to be travelling made it flicker and waver. “How foolish of you Vader. At first this simple rebellion of yours amused me, but my patience is rapidly coming to an end.”

“I have made my intentions clear,” Lord Vader snarled. “As is my right.”

“Yes,” the Emperor said. “Your 'right'. But you forget, my apprentice, the only thing that gives you that right is to be powerful in the Dark Side. And you are a poor Sith, _Lord_ Vader.”

The rumbling snarl that emerged distorted from the vocoder was nothing other than a wordless sound of rage. Then Vader turned to Aphra. “Cut that signal,” he commanded.

“I would if I could!” Aphra said sharply. Her fingers were flying over the terminal's interface, but her efforts were not having any appreciable effect.

“You will have the war you so dearly desire,” the Emperor continued. “If you can survive long enough to wage it.”

“If you wished for me to remain your apprentice,” Vader said, his hands curled into fists at his sides, “you should not have lied to me. You should not have lied about _her_.”

The Emperor laughed. Dogma gripped his blaster more tightly. He didn't like this at all. “”Still clinging to the tattered remnants of Anakin Skywalker,” he said mockingly. “A boy who was never anything more than a slave. Your place is on your knees serving your master.”

With the scream of tortured metal, the holoprojector crumpled, folding in on itself until there was nothing but a barely recognisable lump remaining. Dogma looked at it, rather than at his General. He could feel the chill in the room even through armour – a sure sign of Vader's wrath. Not that he blamed him. Lord Vader had trusted the Emperor once – they all had. To hear that the Emperor had thought of him in that way...

“Father...” Commander Skywalker said, trying to be comforting.

In the heavy silence, the small beep of another holoprojector turning on was too loud to be missed.

“So,” the Emperor's voice was heavy now with satisfaction. “There is a son, as well as a daughter. Perhaps if you do not know your place Lord Vader, your children will. Execute Order 59.”

Dogma's mind went blank.

It was like taking a step out of his body. Watching, as if in a dream, as his arms raised the blaster into position, as his head brought itself forwards to aim... But. Wait. No. He was looking at Darth Vader. At his General.

 _That was an order. Follow it,_ some other part of his mind insisted. _Good soldiers follow orders. Kill Anakin Skywalker._ For a moment a thought flickered across Dogma's mind – Darth Vader, _Vader_ , not Skywalker. But then it was gone.

Around him his _vode_ had brought their blasters up as well – or some of them had. The barrels were wavering in mid-air, uncertain. They were fighting it. They shouldn't be. Authority was authority. Orders were orders. Do what you are told – what happens after doesn't matter.

A fragment of memory – one he hadn't, before now, truly remembered.

 _Take the knife,_ Lama Su had said in a voice without emotion. _Good. Now cut._

He had refused. There had been pain.

 _Follow my orders. Take the knife. And cut._ And a different kind of pain had bloomed like the blood that trickled down his thigh.

 _Good. And now again. You are nothing more than a piece of the greater whole._ You _do not matter. The army matters. The war matters. You do not matter. Your death does not matter. What you want does not matter. All that you have to do - all that you_ must _do is obey. Take the knife and cut again._

Dogma fired.


	38. Chapter 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Luke doesn't understand anything that just happened, Vader continues to resist proper medical care, and the Rebels make it back to base.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be in two weeks time as I'm going to be busy for a while.

**1 ABY – HoloNet Station THX-1138, Christophsis, Savareen Sector, Outer Rim**

Luke had learned his lesson about not asking questions. Even before _Executor's_ arrival in the Christophsis system, he had managed to corner his father and make sure they both were clear about the plan after boarding the HoloNet station. It had sounded simple and problem-free. Aphra was in place to disable security, and her two droids would secure the broadcast room. The station wasn't a military target, it wasn't particularly well defended. There wasn't any reason to think things might go wrong.

He should have known better.

The bad feeling had started the moment they'd seen what Triple-Zero and Bee-Tee had done. Aphra hadn't known, that much had been plain to him in the Force, but she hadn't really cared either. It was a not-knowing because she hadn't _wanted_ to know. Because she had expected something like this might happen but had chosen to ignore that possibility – she certainly hadn't done anything to prevent it.

The order hadn't come from his father. That much was a relief. Vader was trying to do better, for Luke's sake, although even then any emotion that had filtered through their familial bond had been on Luke's own behalf, rather than because he was bothered by this display of cold-blooded murder. Luke supposed after so long as the Emperor's enforcer his father was numb to it all – and perhaps it was too much to expect him to change that quickly. At least he _wanted_ to change things. He might still refuse to see any way other than that of a totalitarian empire, but as Luke had said to his sister, their father had good intentions at heart.

That meant nothing to the dead though. Or to the small group of people left huddling in terror in the centre of the broadcast room.

From that point, things had seemed to run as smoothly as could be expected. Vader's message had gone out to the galaxy, bearing this system's location tag along with it. Those who wanted to join them would know where to look – and so would the Emperor, not that they intended to make things easy for him. _Executor_ wouldn't be staying here, only her probe droids, ready to see who might come after the bait. And yet that same unease, the wariness coming from somewhere in the Force, had continued to nag at Luke.

And then the reason for it revealed itself. The Emperor, Darth Sidious, hacking into their signal somehow. Of course the Empire had plenty of slicers of its own, but Luke wouldn't have thought they would be able to bring them to bear so soon. The presence, even through the HoloNet, was heavy and malevolent. Somehow it brought the Dark Side with it even across that vast distance, a horrible creeping cold, sickening, malignant, and in a way he didn't understand, far worse than anything he had ever felt around his father.

“Do you think yourself powerful enough to no longer call _me_ Master?” the Emperor said, taunting. Luke grit his teeth. Should he step forward? Confront the monster? He wanted to lend his father his support, but as far as they knew his parentage was still a secret from Darth Sidious at least, and although that certainly wouldn't last it was probably a good idea to keep it from him for as long as possible. And perhaps his father wanted to deal with this particular confrontation on his own. There was a powerful rage building in Vader, pulling the Dark Side around him, Dark meeting Dark so that it almost seemed to build on itself, magnified and multiplied itself. Luke shivered.

Sidious taunted, and Vader met his words like for like. Luke could feel the way that the Emperor was threatening to get under his father's skin, goading him into something foolish, but in all honesty he couldn't deny that he was almost as angry. He let the anger pass through him, not allowing it any grip on his use of the Force. He wasn't going to make that mistake again. And besides, the Emperor could do no real harm. He was a hologram, he had nothing but his words – and although that might be a powerful weapon it was one his father had long practise in facing.

Or, Luke had thought that much, until Sidious started to bring up his past.

The Dark Side roared. The holoprojector crumpled. Luke winced as the Dark Side filled the whole room bringing an icy chill with it. This was about as bad as he had ever seen it – all those long years doing the Emperor's bidding and Vader knew it had been for nothing, had been in service of evil rather than whatever good he might have managed to convince himself could come of it... This was twenty years of rage seeking its target.

“Father...” Luke said, helpless to do anything else.

Even then it wasn't over. Before the rage could abate, as his father turned his back on the remains of the holoprojector he had destroyed, another one blinked to life on the other side of the circle, throwing its blue light up in front of Vader's eyes. And Luke realised that he shouldn't have spoken.

“So,” the Emperor said, dripping malevolence and a dark satisfaction. “There is a son, as well as a daughter. Perhaps if you do not know your place Lord Vader, your children will. Execute Order 59.”

Luke didn't understand, not at first. His attention was entirely fixed on the Emperor and on his father. The Dark Side was battering against his senses in a confusing whirl... It felt as though he could not look away. Neither did Vader – at least, not until the blaster bolt hit him in the chest.

Vader staggered, but did not fall. His lightsaber leapt into his hand, summoned by the Force, and ignited into the familiar red blaze. Luke whipped around towards the source of the shot and even then his brain couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. The men of the 501st had their blasters up, or at least some of them did. Others wavered, as though indecisive, or even as if fighting themselves. He couldn't see what they could be aiming at in that direction, and he couldn't see any kind of threat behind them either so who had...

Fingers tightened on triggers. Luke shouted – he wasn't sure what, something wordless, simple dismay and alarm. He didn't understand. What were they doing? He had grabbed his own lightsaber instinctively, but he couldn't seem to make his thumb hit the activation stud. These were people he knew. They were loyal, he _knew_ they were loyal. This didn't make sense...

Behind him his father's saber deflected blaster bolts in a whirl, sending them into the floor or the ceiling. None came back towards the clones.

“Traitors!” someone shouted. Luke risked a glance. Ezra... and _he_ wasn't hesitating. He leapt over the obstacles of terminals and desks between him and the clones in one single elegant Force-assisted bound, saber in hand and hssiss following close behind with predatory grace. Luke wasn't sure whether to stop him or join him. His head rebelled against the evidence of his eyes. And someone was firing a blaster pistol from elsewhere in the room – that had to be Aphra. Her aim was true but the clone-pattern armour was sturdier stuff than modern stormtroopers' garb.

The clones ignored these new attacks, keeping up their barrage of fire – not that any of it was breaking past Vader's defence. Except that Luke realised not all of them were firing. Some seemed to be fighting against the weapons in their hands, forcing the barrels down whenever they threatened to come up. And then Ezra was upon the group. His saber was an arc of crimson – and the clones made no attempt to defend themselves against it. The lightsaber carved through arms, hands and blasters alike... The hssiss jumped at their chosen targets.

“No!” There was no mistaking Vader's baritone. The Force rippled in a wave of power and Ezra was sent flying, pushed away from the 501st. The hssiss cowered away. But the action had been enough to let a few more blaster bolts through, Luke saw with horror. His father grunted in pain but thankfully the damage looked superficial. The brunt of it had been taken by the cloak – which was clearly not made of any kind of normal material, Luke now realised – and the panel of durasteel armour draped over his shoulders and upper chest.

Luke was angry, he was afraid, and he was close to panicking, but he wasn't going to allow his emotions to take control. Not after what had happened the last time. He accepted their existence, let them flow through him but not touch the rational thinking part of him, and reached for the Force. He had to know why the clones were doing this.

Luke recoiled almost immediately. He wasn't exactly practised at reading sentients' minds but he could feel basic emotions, and the 501st was like nothing he'd ever felt before. Some of them were in conflict, warring horror and pain... and some were barely there inside their own heads. He could only think of it as... a sort of puppetry. A programmed response. Somehow the Emperor had done this with the order he'd given. Somehow that had... triggered something.

Within the Force, his perception of time was made to run more slowly. He had the space to plan, to try and decide what to do. There weren't a great many options. It was possible to get inside someone's mind with the Force, influence them to some extent, but he didn't know how to do it. The most he had ever done was project calm – and that had been at children. It wasn't going to cut it here.

A few meters away Ezra was getting back to his feet, the hssiss nudging at him like worried pets. Ezra could do it, Luke realised. He'd managed it with the Star Destroyer Captain at Fondor. It Ezra provided the knowledge and Luke lent him a boost of power...

The 501st were still utterly fixated on Vader. They didn't pay any heed to Luke as he navigated his way at speed between desks and past the civilians taking cover. He reached Ezra before his friend tried to attack again.

“I have an idea,” Luke said.

“What's happening?” Ezra asked, sounding lost. He rubbed the side of his head, where a thin stream of blood was trickling down from a small gash at his hairline.

“It doesn't matter,” Luke said. “I need you to help me get inside the clones’ heads. We need to... pacify them somehow. Put them to sleep maybe.”

Ezra stared at him blankly. “What?” he said. “That's not a thing...”

“You know how to influence minds,” Luke said insistently. “All I need is for you to show me, guide me.”

Ezra shook his head, but it was a brief dismissal of his own questions rather than a refusal of what Luke wanted. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, I trust you.”

Luke closed his eyes, reaching for the Force, for the Light as he'd used it before. He imagined the unbearable weight of Tatooine heat, the heat of the occasional synchronicity of double-noon that made even Jawas and Tusken take refuge inside. It was an almost tangible, physical burden of light, a hammer blow that made you want to lie down and pant and pass-out even if to do so would be a death sentence. The Force responded, and Luke turned his focus from inwards to outwards. Next to him Ezra was a similarly focused glow. He didn't show up in Luke's sense as he usually did, but with something almost bittersweet, and a placid stillness that seemed to be of the Light.

Luke didn't question it. His mind was on other things. He reached out towards Ezra, who in turn reached for the clones, and then he simply... copied.

It wasn't the easy co-operation he'd fallen into with Leia, that time on Executor. That had been like they were the same person, two halves of a whole, feeling the same feelings, thinking the same thoughts. This was separate, copying the moves of a dance or a lightsaber kata. It worked all the same. Gentle unconsciousness passed over the clone troopers in a wave as one by one they slumped to the floor.

Luke opened his eyes. Next to him Ezra was panting heavily as though he'd just run a race. Luke couldn't spare him any attention – no, all of that was reserved for his father. Vader returned his lightsaber to his belt and put a hand up to a place just above the control-box on his chest, pressing in. It was impossible to make out the red of any blood against his black robes. Luke hurried over to him.

Close up, he could see that the first blaster bolt had hit his father in the upper chest, just above the heart. It had skimmed the edge of his chest plate – it was impossible to see the extent of the damage but Luke was amazed Vader was even still standing not to mention that he'd been able to fend off the rest of the clones' attacks.

“You're hurt,” he said, pressing his own hand over his father's. There was dampness under his palm, and a slight trace of the coppery smell of blood.

For a moment Vader didn't answer. He was staring at the unconscious troopers. “It is of no consequence,” he said finally. Luke tried reaching through their bond, trying to work out what his father was thinking, but all he found was an absence. Whatever Vader's emotions were, he had them clamped down tight. Even the pain – and there was pain, Luke could feel that much – was floating on the edge of awareness, there but not really present. It was detached in a way that was slightly worrying, particularly considering what had just happened with the clones.

“We need to get you to Kix – and find out how the Emperor just did that.”

Vader said nothing. Luke had already been worried, now he was even more so.

“Urg, what the kriff was all that?” It was Doctor Aphra, who had ambled over to where the 501st's troopers lay. She kicked the arm of one of them scornfully, then crouched down and cocked her head as though trying to peer through the visor of the man's helmet.

“Aphra...” Vader said, warning her off. She bounced back up.

“What do you need boss?” she asked, coming over attentively.

“Get everyone... back to _Executor._ ” Luke was sure the only things keeping his father on his feet were willpower and the Force. He resisted the urge to offer his shoulder for his father to lean on – he didn't think the gesture would be accepted.

“Even these traitors,” Aphra said, gesturing contemptuously.

“Yes,” Vader growled.

“Okay!” Aphra's smile was a little nervous. “I'll comm the other stormtrooper squads, get them back here to carry these guys out.” She stepped away to start doing just that.

_Father,_ Luke said through the bond, hoping this might make more of an impression. _Medic. Now._ He felt his father's reluctance and sent his own worry right back. If Vader wanted to be stubborn he would reminding him of how stubborn _he_ could be right back. It seemed to do the trick.

Luke just hoped nothing else would go horribly wrong before they got to Kix.

\----

This was his fault. The thought was not a pleasant one but that did not make its truth any less palpable. He had been warned once by Fives and then a second time by Rex and he had not believed them. There were reasons behind this, for all that those reasons now looked pitiful indeed in the cold light of hindsight. The accusation had gone against everything Vader believed he knew about the Chancellor. Palpatine was his closest friend; he could trust him with anything. It was inconceivable to think he might have planned something that could have no other name but evil. It was a chain of logic that did not seem to have a terminus.

And for the chips to exert the kind of control that they did, that had now been proven without doubt, was no more or less than slavery. Slavery worse than that enforced by trackers and bombs beneath skin which controlled only the body. Slavery of the mind. There could be no resistance and no hope of freedom.

Everything Vader had learned about his former Master should have forced him to re-examine this old accusation, but the thought of it had never crossed his mind. He had forgotten it, all of it. He did not think of Fives often, because to do so was painful. Before seeing Rex again – before having him prisoner on board _Executor_ – he had done his best not to think of him either, for the same reason. When Rex had come to him all those years ago he had done his best to understand, but none of what the Captain had told him made any sense. It sounded like the wild conspiracy theories that had been banded about in the lowest parts of the Republic's HoloNet. Then Rex had told him he'd made the decision to have his own chip taken out and another explanation for all of it had presented itself.

Believing then that his friend was no longer his friend – that Rex had mutilated his own mind for the sake of paranoia – _that_ had been a wound that had clawed away at him. His Captain, his comrade, his _vod_ , was lost to him. When the war was over, when despite all of his best efforts Vader could find no trace of Rex anywhere in the galaxy, he had tried to comfort himself with the thought that perhaps whatever remained of the Captain had found some kind of peace. And he had tried to forget, as he had tried to forget everything else that had been lost.

It was easiest to deal with pain by pushing it away, or by distracting himself with other thoughts.

There was no way to push away _this_ pain though. The physical pain his body was in was too little a distraction to be useful – Vader was used to pain of the body and ways of distancing himself from it. To do so was now a habit too hard to break, and the Dark Side too hungry to relinquish what he had always so readily given it. He was trapped with his own thoughts, with recriminations, with the knowledge that he _should have known_ , that there had been a chance to prevent all of this from happening but that he had ignored and wasted it.

Because of this, his _vode_ had been hurt. Vader could not be sure how many had been injured when the Twelfth Brother leapt to his defence. He had been distracted by his own injuries and in ensuring his defence did not become a reflected offence as all training and muscle memory would have had it. Yet that was no excuse. These were his men, his responsibility, his to protect. He had failed them, insurmountably, unforgivably.

Luke guided him back to their shuttle with gentle touches against his arm. His son's concern was wavering warmth in the Force, something that Vader could have taken some measure of comfort in had he wanted – but he did not deserve it and thus refused to reach out to it. He remained silent throughout their flight back to _Executor_ , ignoring Luke's occasional attempts to push him into conversation or even explanation. His son deserved to know but... the words seemed too much effort to force themselves out from his smoke-scarred throat. Blood continued to seep from beneath the pressure of his hand against his wound, soaking his robes, but he ignored that also.

Luke must have sent word ahead, for Kix was already waiting for them in the docking bay, with a full med-kit.

“Sir...” Kix said, his mind buzzing beneath the outer facade of calm with horror and worry. “Let me put a pressure-dressing on the outside of that before we get you to medbay. You've already lost more blood than I'm happy with.”

Vader considered. He did feel a little lightheaded. He took his hand away and Kix near-enough leapt at him, cutting the charred robes wider with one hand and stuffing the expanding dressing within with the other.

“Are you sure you're well enough to make it to medbay unassisted sir?” Kix asked in an undertone, still pressing on the dressing as it solidified. “I can have a hover-stretcher here...”

“That will not be necessary,” Vader replied. Wounded he might be, but he was still functioning acceptably. In truth with the pressure-dressing in place further treatment seemed to him to be unnecessary, but he would never hear the end of it from Kix or Luke if he tried to insist their fussing concern was misplaced.

There was little enough walking required in any case. The turbolift did most of the work for them, only requiring that Vader remain standing within as they traversed the great internal distances of _Executor_. As they reached the medbay itself he thought to ask, “Have you made preparations to receive your injured brothers?”

“Yes,” Kix said, tone flat, voice tense.

“You have questions.”

“They can wait,” Kix replied. “There wasn't time for Commander Skywalker to say much.”

“I was there and I don't understand it either,” Luke said. Vader realised he was unaware of his son's breadth of knowledge on the subject of the chips. He'd had questions, so clearly had not heard of their function from his sister or rebel friends, but it was possible he did not even know the chips existed at all.

Inside medbay, one of the bacta cylinders that lined one wall had been activated in the warm-up sequence that would prepare it for use. Vader looked at it with suspicion. He could not say whether any of the 501st on their way would require such a thing, but _he_ certainly didn't. Yet he did not mistake the way Kix was looking at him.

“No,” he told the medic. To his credit Kix made no attempt to hide his intentions.

“In this case, _yes_ , sir,” he said. “I don't know if you've looked at the scans of how much sub-par cybernetic junk has been shoved inside of you but there's some delicate stuff under there.” He gestured to the blaster wound. “I can't risk prodding around there. Prolonged bacta soaking is the _only_ way that's going to heal right.”

“He's right father,” Luke added. He was projecting determination along their link; a pointed reminder of both their inclinations towards stubbornness.

“Sir, the cylinder will be moved to a private area,” Kix added. “There's no need to fear for your privacy.”

“Your ulterior motives are transparent to me,” Vader told them both. There had been enough pointed comments made in the past about bacta immersion that he could imagine this little more than an excuse to force the issue – but he had not the heart for fighting them at present. Not when he was so weary from the knowledge of how he had betrayed his men. “Very well.”

Luke's eyes half closed in relief. “ _Thank you_ , father.”

“You will see for yourselves that it will do little good,” Vader warned them. “Yet let us waste no time in getting this foolishness over with. Let us begin.”

\----

**1 ABY – ISD- _Vigilance_ , Felucia system, Thanium Sector, Outer Rim**

Cold sweat was trickling down Rear-Admiral Sloane's spine. The bridge of _Vigilance_ was deathly quiet with a potent, heavy silence. A silence full of words waiting to be spoken, and questions to be asked. When the main screen had turned on of its own accord and revealed the mask of Darth Vader himself Rae had braced herself for something momentous – a situation like that could only mean the activation of emergency protocols communicating some news either terrible or wonderful – but even her wildest dreams or nightmares couldn't have prepared her for... that.

She had met Darth Vader once, years ago. He had been accompanying the Emperor on a visit to the _Defiance_ Flight Training Institute, not so very long after the formation of the Empire from the ashes of the Republic. The Emperor had not remained long on the bridge of the cruiser, but had left Darth Vader there as a silent, watchful presence. At the time she hadn't understood where the tall figure, masked and armoured, fit into anything. He had no rank badges, no uniform, but he answered directly to the Emperor and had addressed him as his master. This had been before the long list of Vader's military victories had began to rack up, before the decision had been made to allow COMPNOR to run wild with his image as part of their media campaigns. He was simply a mystery, and one she had forced herself to ignore in favour of showing her training in the best light.

He had been, she'd supposed, the eyes and ears of the Emperor. Sharp eyes and a sharp, tactical mind behind them – it had saved all their lives. The course she had plotted for the ship had been correct, and Rae had known it – but under the weight of her teacher's scorn and correction any surety naturally wavered. Wavered yes, but she had been _certain_. And Darth Vader had sensed that somehow. He had approached her in the wake of Admiral Baylo's departure, spoken to her personally, and more than that, he had believed her. She had been nothing more than a cadet, but even so her word had meant something to him.

And now this.

There were things about the Empire that Rae would have like to change, if she'd ever been given that power, but that was simply life. Nothing was ever perfect, and what they had was better than what had come before. She believed that. She had never had cause to doubt it. But if Darth Vader said that there was a cancer at the center of it all, that their very Emperor himself was a threat to the orderly, safe society they had built...

Did she believe him? There were plenty of corrupt politicians in the galaxy. It wasn't exactly inconceivable that the Emperor could be one of them. More importantly, could she think of any reason for Vader to be lying about this?

Power for himself, that was the obvious answer. But he hadn't said that he would take the throne – the wording had stuck out to her, striking her as strange. How had he put it... that one more suitable would take his place. Perhaps merely some personal grudge. After all, Darth Vader had not exactly been specific about these 'lies' of the Emperor. Indeed he had not been specific about details at all.

In the end all that mattered was that Rae was now facing a choice. As Vader had said, he intended to go to war, which meant that like it or not she would be forced to come down on one side or the other. So who did she trust more? The Emperor – a politician, a man she had never seen, a man who had been less and less in the public eye as time went on. Or Vader, an esteemed and established military commander, who had trusted _her_ once.

Rae Sloane steeled herself internally, straightened her spine, and ordered the comms officer to open a ship-wide channel. She very much hoped she had made the right decision.

\----

**1 ABY – Dac, Mon Calamari system, Calamari Sector, Outer Rim**

Sea spray crashed against the rim of the landing pad. Mon Mothma shaded her eyes against a clear sky untroubled by clouds, blocking out the light of Dac’s binary suns. Overhead two black shapes resolved as they approached, becoming more and more recognisable until the freighters _Ghost_ and _Millennium Falcon_ were hovering above her, settling themselves gently down on the platform. To say she'd been surprised on receiving the transmission from all that remained of the _Executor_ strike force was putting it lightly. This alliance of convenience between Vader and the Rebellion wasn't the kind to lend itself to gestures of goodwill. Still, if there was an ulterior motive in the mix somewhere, she hadn't been able to see it. And it was good to have the team back even so.

All except one of them. Leia was not among the figures now emerging from the two ships. Mon had already been aware of this and the reasoning behind it on Vader's part, but it still felt like a failure. It wasn't an act of logic to blame herself for it, but logic didn't come into it. Leia was still her best friend's daughter – twice over counting Bail and Breha as well as Padme – despite who her father was. Mon felt responsible for her. Leia might be physically safe, but that said nothing about what damage a long captivity and exposure to Vader and the Dark Side might do to her mentally.

Luke had already fallen to that malign influence, after all.

“Welcome back,” she called out.

“Good to be back,” Captain Syndulla said. There was a tense look about her – one Mon had seen before on plenty of other faces. It was the look of someone who couldn’t quite bring herself to believe she was free, that she had escaped.

“Come inside,” Mon told them all. “Dac's surface is no place to be.” The ionising radiation from the suns was the reason that despite their amphibious nature and the presence of occasional minor land masses, neither Quarren nor Mon Calamari had ever really taken to building above the waterline. The city the Rebellion currently called home base was one of the few exceptions to that – designed more for the comfort of off—worlders than for the natives' use.

“We're hanging out on real planets now?” Captain Solo said, sounding dubious about the idea. Naturally – all Rebel Alliance bases up until this point had been on unsettled worlds far from any kind of traffic that could lead the Empire to them.

“We're taking the opportunities the coming civil war has presented,” Mon explained. “We had beaten back the fleet the Empire sent to reclaim this sector but that wouldn't have lasted long. With all the gains we've been making the Empire can't afford to look weak; they would have been forced to send another fleet, one large enough to ensure victory no matter what kind of tactics we used. Now though...” She smiled. There was something very satisfying about all of this. The idea that the Empire would destroy itself had always been a source of hope for her, but she had only ever meant by that that its draconian policies would spur people to take action against it. She had never imagined it to be so literal. There was a sense of poetry and justice there.

“Comfy living,” Captain Solo remarked, as they left the landing pad into a vast atrium decorated in white and gold – a set piece to impress visitors to Dac. “Veeeery nice. Looked like there was a bit of damage to the orbital shipyards when we made our way past though.”

Mon nodded. “Retaking the system was not without cost,” she conceded. “However repairs are on track, and after that the Alliance has been promised as many ships as the Mon Calamari can build until the Empire has been defeated.”

She paused. She had to ask. “How is Leia?”

Solo winced. None of the others looked too happy either. “She's... okay,” the smuggler said. “Still the same stubborn Princess as ever – insisted none of us try any kind of heroics.”

Mon nodded. “That certainly sounds like her,” she said.

“You're gonna get her back though right?” Captain Solo said. “We can't leave her there with Vader.”

“I'm very much aware of the dangers of that,” Mon replied. They had been preying on her mind. But there was a truce, and nothing the Alliance possessed would be enough to persuade Vader to let Leia return to them. She was his daughter, and she was also a powerful Force-sensitive. If she could be made to fall as her brother had... “And I assure you Captain Solo, as soon as we come up with a plan that has any likelihood of success...”

Solo muttered some variety of Huttese curse – which she supposed was an attempt to spare her own ears. If he was trying to avoid insulting her sensibilities however he could have done more about that mutinous look – but she didn't hold it against him. The tension between Solo and Leia Organa had been going on six months and had already become something of a legend in the Rebellion.

“In the meantime, we have Alliance matters to attend to,” Mon said. “We're going to consolidate our forces around this sector before spreading out to Pakuuni sector and Dominuus sector.” She took note of Spectre team's reaction. “Yes, of course Lothal and Garel will be included in our efforts,” she reassured them. “We already know the population there would be ready and willing to rise up against the Imperial garrisons, with the proper support.”

“This is something of a change of strategy,” Captain Syndulla said, “not that I object.”

Mon nodded. “Previously we focused on hitting the Empire where it would hurt,” she said. “We didn't have the ability to take areas of space and hold them. But now we need to take a step back. We don't want to get in Vader's way – let Vader and the Emperor whittle down each other's forces for now. With assistance from the Mon Calamari and the Quarren, we can carve out a piece of the Outer Rim, and be better placed to take advantage of how this all shakes out.”

“I see,” Captain Syndulla replied.

“I'm glad you do,” Mon said. “We're going to need everyone we can get.” She looked pointedly at Captain Solo, who glared.

“I'm not going anywhere,” he said sharply. “Not unless you don't get your act together to rescue Leia.”

Mon hadn't expected anything else. Besides, Solo might be unpredictable at times, but he was smart and he had the Force's own luck. She was glad he was staying with them.


	39. Chapter 39

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vader finally gets a dunk in Bacta, Dogma tries to make sense of his actions, and Kix has a horrible realisation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for body horror, medical horror, and whatever other warnings Vader's physical health and all the implications of it deserve. 
> 
> Next chapter may also be two weeks, because I really haven't been writing as much as I'd have liked this week so far.

**1 ABY – SSD- _Executor_ , Christophsis, Savareen Sector, Outer Rim**

Luke had honestly expected that a lot more persuading and another of their extended arguments would be needed in order to get his father into a bacta tank. In the end though he had agreed surprisingly easily – and that was what was bothering him. Easy was just not how things went with Vader. He'd been so closed off... not only in that he wasn't speaking to anyone, but in their bond as well. Flat and quiet. The desert after a storm had blown itself out; everything covered deep in a half-a-foot of sand.

Vader waited impassively as Kix manoeuvred one of the tanks away from the wall where it had been stored along with five others, pulling it ponderously along on its grav field into one of the side rooms. There Kix hooked it up to the bacta dispenser in the ceiling and plugged in the vast array of medical monitoring equipment. He turned back to them brandishing some kind of breathing mask hooked up to a long, flexible pipe.

“This'll be the tricky bit sir,” he said. “Swapping over from the respirator to this. It's not dissimilar in function, just a bit more external than you're used to.” As something to lighten the mood the not-quite-joke fell flat, but given how awkward this was and for Kix in particular it was a good attempt. “This type of tank hatches open – better than the old models where the injured had to be lowered in from above – and we can lay it flat instead if you'd prefer...”

“Irrelevant.”

Kix glanced at Luke – not that _he_ had any answers to give. He didn't know the first thing about medical technology. All he did know was from what Kix had told him, when he'd thought to actually ask in detail. He had Artoo to thank for that, because otherwise he would never have realised how bad his father's situation really was. The bacta would do more than just repair the blaster wound – although what it was capable of doing was still limited. Kix had been doing some research, and had been more than willing to share his results. If they were really lucky Vader might not even need the fully pressurised suit anymore.

“There's also the matter of a sedative,” Kix said, about as delicately as any clone was able. Luke knew enough about bacta immersion to be aware that the fluid carried high oxygen levels within it both to promote healing and to allow the fluid itself to be breathed - necessary as that sometimes was, and particularly important in _this_ case, most sentients found the experience highly traumatic. They _couldn’t_ be fully conscious while they were submerged.

Unspoken went the comment that Vader had always refused sedatives or painkillers of any kind in the past – it had been a particular point of contention in Kix's rant. It had seemed to do the medic some good getting all of that off his chest to someone – ie. Luke – who might be able to do something about it. Kix clearly had more faith in his persuasive powers than Luke did. He hadn't been able to convince his father of many things so far.

“Which compound?” Vader asked, although he barely seemed interested. Luke had a strange feeling that he was just... playing along. He didn't like this. After everything the Emperor had done to his father, he wanted him to be able to _choose_ , even if the decisions he made weren't ones that Luke agreed with. Even the thought that he and Kix might force Vader into something was terrible... although this was Darth Vader they were talking about. But that image of him wasn't the real man, it was the propaganda, the myth. The real Vader had been the Emperor's slave for so long – which was something Luke had realised was the case a while back but which he thought even now his father hadn't really accepted – that he didn't seem to have any kind of self-worth outside of being little more than a weapon. There was a kind of self-hatred there that Luke was only skirting the bounds of understanding – there had to be, or why insist he didn't deserve the kind of basic decency of care he ensured the clone troopers got?

Kix rattled through a list of long technical terms that Luke didn't understand – although Vader clearly did because he shook his head at each one. Kix's expression became more and more upset and disbelieving.

“I have become resistant to many of these,” Vader explained. He was saying more than three words at a time, but reaching along their mental link Luke still found nothing but flat, empty desert. “Others will not work on any strong Force-sensitive.”

“Then... did the Empire's medics use anything?” Kix asked, not looking like he really wanted an answer. Luke understood exactly where he was coming from.

“Kouhunin,” his father replied. Kix stiffened.

“ _Fierfek._ A _neurotoxin_?”

“What?” Luke said, unable to keep quiet. He had been expecting 'nothing', which would have been pretty terrible, but this sounded deadly! “Is something like that even safe? Is it even a real medical treatment?”

“Maybe it could be used that way,” Kix said doubtfully, “although _I’ve_ not heard of it - but I’m a generalist not a specialist. The risk of side effects though…” He shook his head and made a noise of frustration - almost a growl. “This would all be so much easier if I could just get into the kriffing sealed medical records,” he said. “If I could understand what the hells these people were thinking…”

“Records?” Luke asked. This was the first he’d heard of any such thing. 

“There’s files on the databank here,” Kix explained. “This ship was designed for Lord Vader after all,” he turned slightly to address Vader, “and even if you were never injured in battle sir, the life-support needs maintenance. Probably nothing you couldn’t figure out on your own, but that _chakaar_ would never have given you that chance if he’d had his way. Whoever was meant to take care of that was never transferred to _Executor_ , but the medical records they would need were. Only problem is, it’s all under security seal that I don’t have the clearance for and that I can’t break. I’ve been trying - managed to figure out some stuff - but so much of it is a matter of trial and error and things I know are in there but don’t know how they work…” 

“I have not found your care wanting,” Vader said. 

Kix swallowed, forcing away a brief, bitter expression. “Given what’s come before, that isn’t saying much sir.”

His father said nothing. It was the same blank flatness that made some part of Luke want to scream. It just wasn’t right. 

He wondered briefly if his father might know the codes that would unlock the sealed records but quickly dismissed the thought. Sidious had treasured every bit of control he held over Vader and what was a better means of control than the very mechanisms that kept him alive? He would never have allowed him to know anything that could compromise that control. But… Aphra was on board again. She’d come across on the shuttle with the unconscious clones and those kriffing droids. He was angry with her - not that he’d been able to give that anger any attention with how worried he’d been about his father - but Luke had to admit she knew how to slice tricky systems. If anyone could get into those files, she could. 

That wasn’t going to happen right now though. They had to deal with the problem that was in front of them, and that was getting his father into the bacta tank. 

“This… kouhunin,” he asked cautiously. “What does it actually do?”

“Judging by what it _is_ it should be a kriffing effective painkiller at least,” Kix said, “in that it’d knock out your entire neural system. Unable to feel, unable to move, unable to _breathe…_ That’s how the damn creatures that produce it kill. Although in this case the respirator could take over to an extent - not that it’s designed to do all of the work by itself. But it’d work long enough for most procedures. At least the stuff doesn’t cross the blood-brain barrier. 

“But that’s just the reason we can’t use it - not as a sedative. It _isn’t_ a sedative; it’s a paralytic. I’m a medic, not a torturer!”

“There is no other option,” Vader told them. Luke sensed a flicker of impatience - which was at least better than the nothingness. “You desire this course of action; your objections are pointless.”

“Sir, I don’t care what the Emperor’s doctors might have done,” Kix said sharply. “I don’t care what they’ve forced you to endure in the past. I took an oath and I won’t break it. I have my honour. There has to be a better way… even if we put the immersion on hold for now until I’ve had time to come up with something…”

Vader needed no words to communicate his skepticism. And perhaps he was right - as Kix had said, this wasn’t his speciality and without access to those records, knowing what had been tried - and failed - before, it would surely take too long. Bacta grew less and less useful the older an injury was. His father’s blaster wound wasn’t going to be fatal, but Luke refused to accept that they should just let it scar up like all the other damage that had accumulated over the years. 

Some memory prodded at him, perhaps something he’d heard Alkamar refer to in the past. “The old Jedi order were able to put themselves into a kind of trance,” Luke said cautiously. He wasn’t sure what his father’s reaction to this might be, but in some ways he would almost welcome the rage talking about Jedi usually produced over his current lack of any emotion at all. “Could something like that…”

But there was no rage, no anger. Nothing - except that his father did seem to be considering the idea at least. Eventually Vader said, “The Dark is not amenable to such things.”

Luke took a deep breath. “Alkamar told me,” he said. “She said you started to use the Light again.”

His father stared at him. It was impossible to read whatever he might be thinking. “Yes,” he said at last. “I do not deny it.”

“Then it might work?” Luke pressed. “If we have to use this kouhunin stuff, then you don’t have to be conscious for it!”

“If our honourable medic allows.” That was almost sarcastic - which had to be a good sign. 

“Your son has more faith in the Force than I have sir,” Kix replied. “But I trust that he knows what he’s doing. I’m going to stop all this the moment it looks like it isn’t working though.”

“Of course,” Luke said. _And I’ll help you in any way I can Father,_ he sent over the bond. His words echoed into the desert, but he was sure he had been heard. 

Luke had wondered if his father would insist on the same privacy he had wanted after being injured by the Grand Inquisitor, when he’d nearly refused to allow him into the hyperbaric pod, but Vader began to divest himself of his heavy armour without ceremony, unlocking and removing the upper part of his helmet with a hiss of escaping air and then using the Force to lift the durasteel shoulder plating up, letting it fall onto the floor with a weighty thud. Kix was immediately at his side with the external respirator, helping remove the other segments of the mask and fastening it quickly in place over his nose and mouth. 

Vader’s skin was just as pale as he remembered it, scalp bare and marked by curving ridges of scar tissue. His eyes were gold in a corona of orange-red, like Etra or Tyun as they skimmed the horizon. His heart ached at the sight of his father’s injuries, but it wasn’t pity. His father had been through so much, survived so much - how could he pity him? 

The rest of Vader’s armour came off piece by piece; the belt, the gloves, the boots, the robes and the body-suit underneath them. More and more moon-white skin was revealed - paler even than sun-bleached bones in the desert. So many things were bright in the desert, but even in that place where death was only one mistake away Luke had never seen anything so sickly-pale as this. His father was not meant to look like this. It was only one more thing to lay at Palpatine’s feet, just one more thing that had been done to Vader. It stoked the embers of anger in Luke’s heart, but he breathed deeply and kept it under control. 

This was also his first opportunity to see the new prosthetics his father had created. Each was sleek dark metal and occasional flashes of gold, bare of any synthskin covering. They were beautiful - although Luke suspected the golden-coloured areas were for practical rather than aesthetic reasons. Hidden under everything else his father wore, normally no-one would ever be able to see them. But… that might change. He _hoped_ it would. His father might not care about himself enough to make it a priority, but Luke did, and Kix did as well. 

But that would only happen if the trance worked - and there was no guarantee of that. 

“Are you ready sir?” Kix asked gently, holding the door of the tank open. “I’ll hold off on pumping the bacta in until we can be sure you’re under.”

Vader nodded and climbed inside, having to duck his head. The hatch hadn’t been designed for someone of his height. 

Luke’s head was still buzzing with worry and anger and sorrow - all these emotions stirred up by the horrible truths of his father’s health. He had to get that under control though, or he would never be able to help Vader touch the Light Side. He reached across their bond, which was without barriers, and found that mental landscape again - the quiet, empty desert, looking every bit like Tatooine but without light or heat or warmth of any sort. It wasn’t night exactly - it was as though there was no sky at all, no suns, no moons… 

At least the imagery matched with what Luke had come to use to find the Light. That might make it easier. 

It was not precisely easy to describe how he called the Light to him. It was all instinct, assumptions based on what had worked before, and he had even less idea about creating a healing trance. All he could do was shine a beacon and hope his father’s old Jedi training would take over. He used his memories of Etra and Tyun as fuel, blazing heat and light into the empty sky in his father’s mind. The Light Side surged, swelled all around them. It fought against the Dark that never retreated far from Vader’s side momentarily - but then his father seized it and brought it close to him and things began to settle down into an uneasy equilibrium. 

Luke let his focus fade and opened his eyes. Inside the bacta tank his father was leaning against the back of the tube, his eyes closed, looking peaceful for what had to be the first time since Luke had known him. 

“It’s worked?” Kix asked him, his hand hovering over the tank control panel. Luke nodded, and the medic pressed something that caused a loud clunk from overhead. Bacta fluid began to pour into the chamber. It was thick enough for most sentients to float in it, but Vader had too much metal in or attached to his body for that. The fluid level rose up and over his head without a reaction. 

“Can’t believe your Force-damn idea actually worked,” Kix said with a choked laugh. “Well, now all there is to do is wait.”

\----

**1 ABY - Lamba Shuttle _Arctir_ , Christophsis system, Outer Rim Territories**

Dogma opened his eyes. He was staring up at the ceiling of a troop shuttle, although he was lying on his side, his neck twisted by the way his helmet was resting against the floor.. This seemed incongruous - why was he lying down? It could not be sleep; had he taken a blow to the head perhaps? His memories of recent events were fuzzy, seeming to stand just out of reach. They had taken the HoloNet station without much incident, he recalled that much, and then Lord Vader had made his address to the galaxy… 

_Kill Anakin Skywalker._

The wave of anger and determination swept over him but… it was strange. Almost alien. General Skywalker had done… something. What? Dogma didn’t know but it would have to have been truly terrible for him to feel this way about their General. Betrayal? Again? But that couldn’t be - General Skywalker had been the only one to stay loyal to the troops when the Jedi turned… 

_Kill._

Dogma winced, pressing his eyes tightly closed for a moment to try and drive the the insistent reaction - instinct or… or _command?_ \- out of his head. He tried hard to remember. Lord Vader. General Skywalker. The two names, two _identities_ , slid together strangely. Why was he thinking of Lord Vader by an old name he had long since given up? That wasn’t their way. That wasn’t how names worked for the _vode._

There had been an intrusion into their channel. The voice of the Emperor. The words were fuzzy in Dogma’s memory, but the voice stood out. And then they had tried to… 

_Kill Anakin Skywalker._

_Yes, yes, I_ know, Dogma told himself. _I know what I have to do. I know what my duty is._ General Skywalker was still alive, he had fought them off even though they had wounded him and… but he didn’t remember what had happened after that. It was lost in darkness, in a blank absence. 

Dogma tried to sit up - and found that he couldn’t. His legs were bound together at the ankle, his arms bound behind his back, and both were held against the floor of the shuttle hard enough that he couldn’t move then even the slightest amount no matter how hard he tried. Someone noticed his struggles though. He heard footsteps coming towards him, and then a kick landed against his ribs - not hard enough to do real damage, although it took the breath out of him. He hadn’t been expecting it. 

“Awake are you, you kriffing traitor?” A woman’s voice. Familiar. Dogma twisted over as much as he was able and tried to look at his captor. Nothing here made any sense. 

“Aphra,” he growled, once he could see her properly. “What is the meaning of this? Let me go, _now._ ”

“I don’t think so,” she replied. “Why did you do it, huh?” She seemed genuinely upset. “Why the hell did you do it?”

Dogma didn’t understand. “What are you talking about?” he asked. As he’d moved to get a better look at her, he’d caught a glimpse of other clones out of the corner of his eye. They were in similar positions as he was. 

Aphra cursed, and called him something foul in Huttese. “Turning on Darth Vader!” she yelled. “Why the kriff…!”

_Kill Anakin Skywalker._

Dogma winced again - each time he reminded himself of what he had failed to do it sent a thick pulse of pain through his head. Except… except. He was coming to realise how strange and unreal everything past a certain point felt. He’d thought the memories would become more solid as he woke up, more coherent and understandable, but they hadn’t. There was something _wrong_ here. Something… 

_Just think of Lord Vader,_ he told himself. _Not Anakin Skywalker._ The pulse of rage and _need_ to act came as he’d expected it to. He forced it away. _Vader._ The person he trusted, the person he respected and obeyed, the person who had made sure he and his _vode_ didn’t languish away in impoverished forced retirement and gave them purpose again… what could Vader have done, to justify this? What had happened? Why couldn’t he remember it? 

“Answer me,” Aphra demanded, kicking him again. 

“I… I don’t. Know.” Dogma had to force the words out. “I don’t… remember.”

“ _That’s_ really what you’re going for here?” Aphra asked, with clear disbelief. “You don’t _remember_? You don’t _remember_ turning your guns on Darth Vader and trying to _kill_ him?”

“I remember that,” Dogma said. “I don’t remember… why.”

 _“I don’t know_ ,” Aphra said, a sarcastic mimicking of what he’d said. “Y’know, if you’re not going to tell me I’ll just have to guess. I’m going to say, because you're all kriffing traitors and because the Emperor told you to.”

“No, that’s not…” Dogma shut his eyes, trying to force his memory into action. That _wasn’t_ what had happened. They knew the Emperor was their enemy. They had all forsworn him, knowing in their hearts that Vader was where their loyalties ought to lie. He wouldn’t turn on his command, his _vod_ , because of something the _Emperor_ said. 

But he didn’t _remember._ Aphra seemed certain, and she had been there too. Why didn’t he remember! Was he forcing himself to forget? Had something been _done_ to him? 

Aphra made a noise of disgust. “I don’t know why I’m talking to you,” she said. “You’re not going to give me any answers. _Someone_ will get it out of you though - and then you’ll wish you had spoken up earlier.” She moved away from him, and was quickly out of the limited line of sight Dogma’s position allowed him. 

Now there were only his growing doubts to keep him company. His disquiet grew stronger with every moment his memories failed to return. 

What had he done? 

What had he _done?_

\----

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Christophsis system, Outer Rim Territories**

Kix took a final look at the readouts from Lord Vader’s bacta pod before turning away and heading back through to the main medbay. Everything seemed to be stable. Commander Skywalker’s ridiculous idea had worked. Although perhaps it hadn’t been so ridiculous after all; during the war Kix had been given an overview course on Jedi health and the peculiarities of treating their kind, even though his main focus had been on the clones. He could pitch in when the Generals needed it, but the Jedi and the non-clone officers had their own medics, who were real doctors who had gone to real medical school. Kix had always been uncomfortably aware that everything he knew had been learned via rapid teaching technology, the information dumped into his head in a way that only modified clone biology allowed. At times he suspected most officers thought him little more than a jumped up medi-droid. Not the Jedi though - or at least not _his_ Jedi.

Healing trances weren’t common abilities and most Jedi had required the assistance of one of their own who specialised in the skill to help them achieve the state. They were effective despite this drawback, Kix had to admit. He wouldn’t have thought of using one for this particular problem before, but Lord Vader hadn’t so much as shuddered when the bacta was pumped in. He was in as deep a state as any sedative he knew could create. 

Kix shook his head. The rest of the shuttles were on their way back from HoloNet station THX-1138, bringing the wounded with them, and they were the ones who needed his attention now. His was far from the only medbay on board _Executor_ , but although it had never been formally discussed amongst the ship’s medical personnel it was the unspoken agreement that he was Lord Vader’s personal medic, and the medic for his personal guard - meaning the clones.

Commander Skywalker hadn’t said much about what had happened on the station over the comms. Kix hadn’t pressed him for details given the state his father was in, but there had still been enough to put two and two together. Blaster wounds and lightsaber wounds. The latter was far worse, and far outside of what Kix had been expecting he’d have to treat, but he did have some experience and his own personal datapad of records from the Clone War. There had been enough lightsaber-wielders running around on the side of the Confederacy, after all that it had been in everyone’s interest for that information to be spread as widely as possible.

He would find himself prepping his _vode_ for cybernetics themselves before long. At least they would get the best it was possible for them to receive. 

Kix laid out and checked his tools, ran diagnostics on his scanners and the med-bay systems, and activated the medi-droids that would be his assistants and nurses before he had to admit that he was trying to distract himself from the real question on his mind. What had happened? And why? There were pieces of the puzzle he was missing, but even what _was_ there didn’t make much sense. His _vode_ would never turn on Lord Vader. He was their General, their leader, the one they all looked to. He was to them as the Mand’alor to Mandalorians, to use the best metaphor Kix knew. 

There was a horrible doubt luring in the back of his mind. Kix hadn’t been present when Dogma had confronted Rex on the bridge, but there wasn’t a clone on board who hadn’t heard about it and just what had been said. Kix had never personally had much cause to think about their anti-aggression chips, save that they were there and they worked as the Kaminoans intended. He had been the one Fives had gone to with his vast conspiracy theory, but he had also seen just the kind of state Fives had been in at the time. He’d passed on the message to General Skywalker, as requested, and hoped that their General would get Fives the help he needed. He hadn’t _believed_ in any of his _vod’s_ paranoid delusions. 

Now he wasn’t so sure. There didn’t seem to be any other explanation for what had happened, and Commander Skywalker had said something about the Emperor, about an order he had issued. No ordinary order, but an order with a capital letter at the front of it. Kix thought he knew what the young man meant; a contingency order, one of those classified emergency measures whose coded meaning had been part of all the other military information shoved into their heads during training on Kamino. 

Order 66 had been one such. 

If Kix were to believe Fives’ theory though, it would mean those orders were more than just a simple code. It would mean they were a kind of brainwashing, an imperative where the choice to obey or to reject - as they had rejected Krell’s orders on Umbara - was taken away from them. As Rex had said. Meat clankers. 

The thought was horrible. He didn’t want to think about it - but he had to. If it really was the case, if these chips really were no more than a slave device, an organic restraining-bolt, then there was only one choice left available to him and only one duty as a medic. He had to take them out. Even if the result was a broken mind, uncontrolled violence… at least they would be free. The surgery might even kill them, but if so, they would die free. Kix and his _vode_ might not be true Mandalorians but they were from Mandalorian stock and they had taken on as much of the Mandalorian ideals as they could without running into the ire of the long-necks. Principles - and freedom greatest amongst them - meant something. 

The medbay comms unit trilled. Kix stiffened, adrenaline making him hypersensitive and over alert, before getting control of himself and rushing to pick it up. “Yes?” he asked. 

“This is Ensign Ionic,” the voice replied. “The 501st has been brought on board. As per protocol, staggered arrival will take place over the next half-hour.”

“Affirmative.” The medi-droids were activated and ready, and presumably basic triage protocols were part of their programming. It was time for him to get to work. Stabilise first, treat what was going to kill his brothers, and then… and then he would find a way to get these damn chips out of all their heads. 

\----

Admiral Piett kept his mind fixed on the tactical situation in front of him by an effort of will. He had very little information about what had happened on HoloNet Station THX-1138, except that it had not gone to plan and had lead to Lord Vader’s injury - and so soon after the first one. The thought had occurred to him that this put paid to the rumours of Vader’s indestructibility, exaggerated as that always had been by propaganda and rumour, but the more cautious and logical part of his brain had him reluctant to ignore the body of evidence up until this point. If Darth Vader could be hurt, it was by things that would have killed a lesser man. The Force-summoned lightning that had wracked his body and burned through his life-support systems fighting the Inquisitors would have been equally devastating to anyone. As to this latest event… Piett simply didn’t have the knowledge to pass comment. 

ISD- _Vulpine_ , which had drifted further and further out of planetary orbit in the past hour, was beginning to show signs of gaining power again. It had done so once already, but _Executor’s_ ion cannons had done their work again swiftly and disabled her for the second time. Now though two further Star Destroyers had appeared on their screens, rapidly approaching. On her long, subtle low-power crawl in from the edges of the Christophsis system, Executor had released probe droids in order to establish the positions of the rest of the Christophsis Defence Fleet that was not around the planet itself. Those drones had report the ISD- _Corona_ had been roughly a half-hours top-speed travel away from their target, and ISD- _Reaper_ twice that. The fact that they were arriving together meant _Corona_ had had the sense to hang back and wait for her back-up. 

Piett did not doubt _Executor’s_ capabilities in the slightest. She had eliminated a similar fleet whilst still in dry-dock, albeit with assistance from the nebulous, ill-defined power of the Force. She could do the same here and now, but Piett was reluctant to fire without provocation on those who had been on his own side until recently. _Vulpine’s_ lack of power meant she could not have received Lord Vader’s message, but that was not true of the other two ships. Honour and morality demanded he give them a chance. If they had any interest in joining them, _Reaper_ and _Corona_ would hail them. If not, then _Executor’s_ shields could absorb one salvo easily enough. 

If the Captains of the two ships had made the wrong decision though, Piett could not spare them. This system was now a designated rallying zone for Vader’s Empire, which meant it had to be safe for any ships that came here looking to make contact, and for the probe droids they would be leaving beside to transfer that contact on. For the safety of the war effort, _Corona_ and _Reaper_ would have to be destroyed. 

Within ten minutes, the Star Destroyers would be in firing range. There had been no hail as yet - but there was still time. Piett stared at the small grey-white dots in the distance of space. _Make the right decision,_ he urged the Captains of those far-off vessels. _Do the right thing_. But as much as he might wish to influence them, he was no Sith or Jedi. This was in the hands of fate or the Force.


	40. Chapter 40

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which scholarship is important, Luke is reminded of his heritage, Dogma is having a terrible day, and Luke gets a hug that's been a long time coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To reiterate, I have a great debt to Fialleril for coming up with Amatakka and all the other Tatooine culture elements.

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , en route to the Arkanis system**

There hadn’t been much for Luke to do on the journey back to Arkanis. There had been an exciting hour before they left the Christophsis system when the rest of the system’s Star Destroyers had arrived within attack range and opened fire on them, but Admiral Piett had handled it easily. It would take a lot more than just three Star Destroyers to take on _Executor_. Those ships were little more than wreckage now. With his father safely in the bacta tank, Kix dealing with the wounded clones, and no pressing need to discuss battle plans with anyone once he’d given after-action reports to everyone who had the right to know about it, perhaps he could finally set aside some time to look through the information they’d picked up from the temple on Arkanis. 

Luke knew just the person to help him as well. Or, people. Leia was still a prisoner on board and understandably bored and frustrated about the whole thing, so he had already promised her a few days ago that they would look at the files together, but he should invite Ezra along too. He felt a bit like he had been neglecting Ezra. He hadn’t taken him along on the temple expedition with him and his father, but that had been more because Luke wanted to try and get to know the other Inquisitors a little better. If he was going to be working with them he needed to know what they were like - even if he ended up not liking the answers. The way they had been twisted around by the Inquisitorius’ teachings… he wanted to fix it but he didn’t have the first idea how. 

There had been quite a lot of stuff in the temple’s hidden room, and some it was actual flimsi records not just files in a databank that could be copied. He and Vader had needed the help of the Inquisitors to transport it all back to the ship. Luke felt a little bit guilty for taking it out of the temple, from where these things had been stored for thousands of years. It was amazing that any of it had even survived. After they had found what they needed, he promised himself, he would make sure everything was returned. 

Luke sent a comm to Ezra as he made his way towards the room where Leia was being held. Then he reached out through the Force for his sister. 

_Leia. You remember what I promised, about the temple?_

The answer came quickly. _Finally found some free time in your very busy schedule?_ It was only half a sarcastic joke, the rest was genuine annoyance. Luke understood. He’d thought of himself as his father’s captive for a while, and the experience hadn’t been pleasant. He could only imagine how much worse it was for Leia. If only she could make some kind of peace with Vader… but that would never happen, for the same reasons Ezra’s family would never forgive him for what he’d done. 

_I have a lot to tell you about,_ Luke replied. 

_Something happened?_ Leia’s focus sharpened. 

_The Emperor…_ Luke said. _After the speech was done…_ He didn’t really want to talk about it. It was all so fresh, so horrible, not to mention mixed in with the senseless massacre of the reporters and technicians… He hadn’t come to terms with it yet, he knew that. It was easier just to show Leia the images inside his head, guiding her mental presence into the memories. He felt her reaction, so similar to his own. 

_The chips,_ Leia said, seeing something that Luke had missed. 

_What chips?_ he asked. 

He felt Leia’s surprise. _Don’t you know?_ she asked, then added, _Wait, you weren’t there for that were you. The fight between Rex and Dogma, on the bridge. You’d left with that Inquisitor by that point._

_No-one told me about a fight!_ Luke said, a little dismayed. It sounded like the sort of thing he ought to have known about. 

_There are biomechanical chips in the head of every clone trooper,_ Leia said, and went on to explain in more detail what she knew about them and the function they served. As she spoke Luke became more and more upset. What she described matched entirely with what he’d seen in the broadcasting station - an overriding of the clones’ will, a horrible puppetry. 

All of the clones had known these things existed. It just sounded like they hadn’t believed what they were really for. That made sense though, because who would _want_ to believe such a thing. They trusted the Empire, they _had_ trusted Palpatine… 

His father had known as well. Luke felt a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Vader had shown far more concern for the clones than for himself, and he’d been so quiet in the aftermath… Did he blame himself for not believing this? For what had happened? Luke knew his father well enough by now to be sure that the answer was yes. 

He wanted to turn around, go back to the medbay and reach out to his father through the Force… but deep in the healing trance he wouldn’t be able to speak to him. He couldn’t do what all his instincts demanded he should be doing, and he _had_ put off this current task for too long already. Better that he try to distract himself with it for now.

_That does explain it,_ he told Leia. _But they do… snap out of it eventually?_

_I suppose they must,_ Leia replied. She had to have sensed something of Luke’s dismay, because she didn’t make any comment about the evils of the Empire or of Vader, and he knew she had to want to. _I can’t say how long that might take though._

_We’ll just have to keep them separated from Vader until it stops,_ Luke said, with some uncertainty. _And if it doesn’t… maybe we can help somehow. I managed to put them to sleep with the Force, perhaps we could use it to…_ He shook his head. There was still an awful lot he didn’t know about how the Force worked or the limits of what it could do - if there even were any limits. Some things Alkamar had said made him think the only real limits were mental ones. 

By now Luke was almost at Leia’s prison room. Two stormtroopers were guarding the door, more for show than anything. If Leia wanted past them they wouldn’t prove much of a challenge against her abilities with the Force - it was the rest of the ship and the lack of any practical means of escape that was the real deterrent. The troopers came to attention as he approached. 

“Sir,” one said saluting. “You’ve come to see the prisoner?”

Luke nodded and stepped past them, swiping his code cylinder past the ident panel to open the door. Leia was waiting for him. She looked unhappy, but not unwell. 

“Hi,” Luke greeted her. “Want to get out of here for a bit?”

“For longer than ‘a bit’,” Leia replied, rolling her eyes. “But let’s go anyway.”

Luke led the way out of the room - the stormtroopers stiffened, their blasters jerking up automatically, but he waved them off and they stood down. “By the way,” he said, “Ezra’s going to be joining us.” 

“The Inquisitor?” Leia asked with clear distaste. 

“I know that after what you’ve heard about him from Spectre you’ve got no reason to trust him, but if you knew everything the Inquisitorius have done to him…”

“He murdered the closest thing he had to a father,” Leia said flatly. 

Luke winced. “Yes,” he said. “I know.”

“Doesn’t that tell you something about him?” 

“When we were in the temple on Vrogas Vas, the Force showed us visions,” Luke said, starting to explain. “I saw what he did, from his own perspective. It was an act of desperation, something he was driven to. Not something he chose.”

“How can you always do this?” Leia asked him disbelievingly. “Make excuses for the worst kinds of people, forgive things that can’t be forgiven… I wondered since we met how you could have such a big heart but now I’m starting to think it’s more of a weakness than a strength.”

“I’m not asking you to forgive something that can’t be forgiven,” Luke said. “Just to give him a chance.”

Leia said nothing. It wasn’t agreement, but it wasn’t a refusal either. 

\----

Leia’s anticipation for getting her hands on some pieces of history had been dulled by the news of who else would be doing this with them. Luke’s arguments about the Inquisitor who had once been Ezra Bridger had never been very persuasive to her, but she had been more willing to listen to them than his former crew and found family had been. She didn’t like to make judgements without all the evidence, and Luke’s faith had to have a basis of some kind, but the longer Luke spent working with Imperials and following Vader’s plans the less confidence she had in her brother’s judgement. 

As she had been warned, the Inquisitor was waiting for them - and so were the two dangerous predators he kept as pets. It struck her as odd that he would bring his animals around the ship with him. They might be very well trained, but even the most obedient creature still had the potential to act on its instincts. As she got closer Leia began to feel the heavy cloud of the Dark Side that lay insidious around the beasts, and tried not to let her distaste show too obviously on her face. She didn’t want the Inquisitor to misinterpret it as fear. It was even odder that they had this presence in the Force - she suspected there was more to the animals than first appeared.

“Hey Ezra,” Luke said, greeting the young man. “You’ve not had a chance to meet Leia properly yet, have you?”

The Inquisitor didn’t object to this use of his old name, even though it was something that Sith and their ilk were meant to give up. Leia had intended to use it anyway in the hopes it might annoy him, so she had no problem following her brother’s example. And even if he didn’t show any obvious irritation, that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. 

“I haven’t had that honour, no,” Ezra said. He looked as wary of her as she did of him. Sensing his emotions and thoughts was more difficult through the Dark Side surrounding him, but Leia could still reach him with a bit more effort. Yes, he was wary - although she was less pleased to see that it was at least as much because of her blood-relationship to Darth Vader than because she was a Jedi. 

If she could somehow wipe the knowledge that she was Vader’s daughter out of the galaxy then she would. But it was the kind of secret that couldn’t be put back into its box once it had escaped. If instead she could just force the galaxy to acknowledge how little that meant - to her or in the grand scheme of things… but people didn’t think like that. They gave genetics a lot more credit than they ought. 

“Shall we get on with it then?” she asked, moving past the Inquisitor with care that their bodies at no point touched. She wasn’t sure what this room had originally been used for, although in a vessel the size of _Executor_ there was bound to be space to fill up with, essentially, empty space. Now, it was full of tables piled with datapads, charger cables coiling like serpents over every surface and down to meet power points nearer the floor. 

“I’m not even sure where to begin,” Luke said, coming into the room behind her. “I’ve had some luck before with simply letting the Force guide me but here…”

“I know,” Leia said. “I feel it too.” The Force lay heavy on these artefacts, but it was amorphous and undirected. It might have been the end result of lying around in a temple for thousands of years or because of something else. It didn’t really matter - she had a sense they weren’t going to be able to get rid of it and would just have to work around it. 

“It’s so… old,” the Inquisitor said. Leia glanced at him but he wasn’t looking at her, attention fixed on the room’s contents. 

“We will just have to make a start and see where we get,” Luke said, picking up two datapads from the nearest table, unplugging them and handing them one each. Leia turned her one over in her hands. The casing was cracked and weathered - it felt as thin and delicate under her fingertips as fine Alderaanian pottery. She dispelled the thought and the memories that came with it with a sharp effort of will. 

“I’m surprised you even got the power source in these to accept a charge,” she remarked. 

Luke grinned. “We ran them past _Executor’s_ tech department,” he said. “New power sources for all of them and some repair work to the motherboards where we could. I think they enjoyed the challenge; none of this tech has been current for a very, very long time.” 

“Knowing you I’m surprised you let anyone else have all the fun,” she teased. 

“With all this lot? I’d be here ‘til the end of my life!”

“Um, one small problem.” This was from Ezra, who had turned his datapad on and was staring at it with a puzzled expression. He turned it around so they could see the screen. “I don’t even recognise this language.” 

“Can I see?” Luke held his hand out. Ezra passed the datapad over. Luke studied it, frowning and paging through a few screen’s-worth of writing. “This seems… somehow familiar…” he muttered to himself. Leia could see the moment he came to a realisation, but strangely he didn’t say anything. 

“I guess we could try a translator program?” the Inquisitor suggested. 

“I could try and put something together,” Luke said, “and run it past Aphra and the tech guys as well, of course.” He turned the datapad off and looked at them apologetically. “This was a bit of a waste of time. Sorry.”

“Yes Luke, I have so much on my busy schedule,” Leia told him, rolling her eyes a little. She was disappointed, yes, but at least she wasn’t alone staring at a blank wall, which had made up far too many of her days recently.

“I’ll get this sorted out,” Luke promised them both. “And then we can get started properly. In the meantime though, I just had a thought. It’s about something I’ve been neglecting actually - my lightsaber training. On Vjun, Ezra was teaching me but perhaps if you’d like Leia, you could train with us too?”

Leia thought about the idea. She had some knowledge of the very basics from Ahsoka, but the Togruta’s injuries had meant they hadn’t been able to do very much in the time that they’d had. She was unsure about trusting the Twelfth Brother - and she would have to trust him if she was going to learn from him or spar with him - but it would be something to do that wasn’t stuck alone in a sparse prison room, casting her mind out into the expanses of _Executor_. She nodded. 

“Fine.”

“Excellent!” Luke smiled widely. “If we swing past the tech department first, we could even make a start of it right now.”

Leia exchanged wary looks with the Inquisitor. She could feel that he did not entirely like the idea of working with a Jedi any more than she liked working with a Sith - but the both of them had a vested interest in doing this. And it would make Luke happy. She followed her brother, hoping she had made the right decision.

\----

Afterwards and back in his quarters, still damp from the shower he’d taken to wash off some well-earned sweat, Luke picked up one of the Arkanii datapads and scrolled through the almost-familiar text again. He’d been right. Whatever language this was written in, there were enough similarities that he could _nearly_ read it, although nearly was a far cry from genuine understanding. This, thousands of years old, was in some ways an ancestor of the language of Tatooine’s slaves; Amatakka. Or even if it wasn’t a direct ancestor, it had been some kind of influence. Luke’s knowledge of Amatakka was far from complete - Uncle Owen had spoken a little of it which Shmi had taught him, and Aunt Beru was half-way to fluent. Whitesun after all, like Skywalker, was a slave name. They had wanted to pass down what they could from his grandmother, and Luke had been eager to learn it. It was scattered though, fragmented. He couldn’t hold a conversation in it. 

The fact that the Arkanii language was so similar had left Luke with a problem. Amatakka was secret; it could be shared with family but never with outsiders. If he gave Aphra or anyone else a place to start it would mean revealing something he had no right to reveal. It would break a sacred trust. He couldn’t do that. But if he said nothing and just let them work as they could, who knew how long it would take them to make any sense out of the vast amounts of data the temple had contained. They _needed_ the knowledge that data held, even if there was no guarantee it would solve the problem of Darth Sidious, even if it turned out to be useless. They had very few options, and the Force must have meant to tell him _something_ by picking that particular location as the setting for his vision. 

On the other hand, who knew how long this civil war would stretch on for. It could be months, years even. Vader might have these grand ideas about Luke becoming Emperor, had trained him to be capable of leading ships and troops in battle, but Luke wasn’t vital for the war effort. If he needed to focus on this one thing only, he could. They did have time. 

No, it was clear what he had to do. He couldn’t tell anyone what he knew. He couldn’t even hint at the existance of Amatakka. Aphra was smart. So were _Executor’s_ techs - they wouldn’t have managed to get their jobs if they weren’t. They would manage to create a translation program without his help. 

\----

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis system, Outer Rim Territories**

Dogma’s head was aching. It wasn’t a particularly severe pain, but the low unpleasant throb of it was enough to drag him out of the last vestiges of sleep and into the waking world. He opened his eyes to the familiar white of a medbay. His thoughts felt fuzzy and unfamiliar. He realised he wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing here. What had happened, before this most recent period of unconsciousness? He’d been brought to the medbay. He remembered some of that. Being marched through the corridors of _Executor_. Doctor Aphra’s cold stare at his back. There had been a black, cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something insistent and nagging that he’d known he _had_ to do… 

Flashes of images, of memory. Injured brothers. Kix, waiting for them, angry and upset. Dogma’s binders snapping off. Instinctively trying to leave. Kix’s arm across his chest stopping him. Something he’d said… 

“This isn’t you. Rex was right.” 

Dogma had ordered him to get out of his way. He remembered the words coming out of his mouth as though they were being said by someone else - another part of him that was more himself had been trying to still his tongue, trying to articulate with that growing horror just what he had done… 

_Traitor,_ Dogma thought, the memories coming into focus like a punch in the gut. He raised a hand to the side of his head, the site where the dull, aching pain seemed to be coming from. His fingers touched the smooth metal of a dermal regenerator. _You’re a traitor. You turned on your general. You did it again._

Kix had sedated him - that had to be part of why things felt so disjointed. That or the surgery. Kix had told him about it once the drugs had taken effect, the dose not large enough to put him out completely but strong enough to take his legs from out underneath him and force him to lie down. Dogma had only half-listened. That impulse had still been battering at him, forcing him to try and fight the sedative. He’d wanted… except it hadn’t been him, if Kix was right. And that feeling wasn’t there now. Dogma felt for the edges of it warily, thinking of Lord Vader - Force, what had he _done_ \- but there was no overwhelming sense of duty as there had been before. 

Dogma levered himself up into a sitting position, leaning back against the medbay wall for support. He wasn’t the only clone in the room, but the rest were still sleeping off the anaesthetic. He could see that they too had dermal regenerators fastened onto newly shaved heads. Looking down at his hands he noticed for the first time that they were shaking - he balled them into tight fists in his lap and focused on his breathing. 

His chip was out. Kix had taken it out. He’d taken _everyone’s_ out. The only difference it seemed to have made was in wiping away that foreign impulse - one which at the time Dogma hadn’t quite been able to realise wasn’t him. It had felt like him. It hadn’t been some voice in his head commanding him, it had been… knowing something the way he knew how to hold a gun, how to walk. The way he knew he was a soldier, the way he knew right from wrong, the way he knew his duty. Could he really be so sure it _hadn’t_ been him? At least some of it? After all… his stomach turned over, bile burning in his throat, but he forced himself to finish the thought. After all he had shot his general before. _That_ had been him. Hadn’t some of the others been able to fight it? The memories were still fragile and fragmented but he was sure he recalled seeing that much. 

Lord Vader was still alive. He had to be. Dogma knew how tough he was, and after the first few shots the rest had been deflected away. It made it no _better_ , he wasn’t trying to make excuses for what he had done, but he thought that as long as his General survived this he could go to his execution happily. 

He wondered if they would bother with a trial first. It would be no more than a formality, and needless given that they were at war. Better to get it over with. Kix might have removed the chips - near impossible though it was to believe that Rex had been _right_ about at least some of what they were for - but that didn’t change what had been done or guarantee their behaviour for the future. Look at what Rex had done since having his removed. He’d still abandoned his post, deserted his duty. What if they were all like _him_ now? Chips or no chips, they couldn’t be trusted. 

_He_ had done this. His hands. His blaster. His intent. He hadn’t fought it off, hadn’t even had a second thought, not until it was far too late. He was dangerous. They should have put him down after the first time. Lord Vader was paying the price now for the Kaminoan’s mercy. There was no chance of anyone making that mistake again though. 

Dogma just had to wait, and then it would all be over. Yes. That was what had to happen. 

\----

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis system, Outer Rim Territories**

There was only the Force. Time did not exist as deep as he was. Past, present and future were all as one. Vader maintained a dim awareness of external reality, but for the most part he simply allowed himself to float. It had been many years since he had last experienced a healing trance. The Sith did not utilise such things. What methods of healing they had were unsubtle and relied heavily on the raw power of the Dark Side. He had to admit that his knowledge on the subject was limited however. Sidious had claimed his lack of finesse and poor mastery of the Dark Side as the reason for withholding those particular teachings from him; now that Vader could see things more clearly he was certain it had only ever been another means of control. 

Outside of the trace, such thoughts would have awoken his anger. As it was, his son had drawn him into contact with the Light, which would not allow such things to exist within it. It lacked emotions of any kind - it did not even allow him to feel his typical distaste at that very fact. It was peace, yes, but enforced rather than natural. It was oddly clinical, and Vader suspected the influence of the Jedi Order in this. The more merit he allowed the Arkanii theories regarding the Force, the more he began to perceive subtle variations in the nature of the Light Side and the Dark Side, which up until now he had regarded as simply monoliths of Force energy. 

This was getting into territory of theory and theology he had never been entirely comfortable with. Prophecy might have labelled him the Chosen One, but even as a child he had never taken to these particular lessons at the temple. The closest he had ever come before to the metaphysical had been his experiences on Mortis, and he remembered too little of that to trust any of it. The Arkanii were no more likely than any other group to know the truth about the Force, but he had been too hasty at first to simply reject it all out of hand. They were right about at least some things - the mere fact that he had achieved this trance was proof enough of that. The Light was not comfortable to him, but he _could_ touch it. 

Gradually, although he was little aware of it, time did pass outside of the trance. It took a familiar presence tapping lightly against the boundaries of his own mental shields to start to bring him out of it, but then Vader was opening his eyes to the inside of a bacta tube, the liquid itself mid-way through draining out, and his son’s shining warmth in the Force close by. 

The Light Side also began to drain away. It felt less foreign to him now after so long submerged in it, but he still welcomed the sense of the Dark back into his surroundings as a familiar trusted friend. Emotion returned to the world, the unnatural peacefulness dispelled. 

Vader remembered what he had done - or rather, what he had failed to do. 

The bacta tube hissed open. He grabbed hold of the sides of the hatch to pull himself out… and then hesitated. There was barely any pain at all. The sharp pull of poorly-bonded synthskin, the constant ache and tugging of his prosthesis mounts inside what remained of his arms and legs, the harsh rasp and burn of air through his throat and into his chest and the constant _tightness_ of his lungs… It had all been there for so long that he had long ago nearly forgotten about it, had accepted it. He hadn’t _remembered_ what it had like to be any other way. But now… 

He didn’t deserve this. He hadn’t before, and even less so now. What kind of reward was this for betraying the soldiers who had relied on him, and who had trusted him with their safety? What kind of reward for permitting the enslavement of his _vode_? He had agreed to it only because he had not believed it would truly _work_. 

“Father?” Luke’s voice was hesitant, perhaps sensing the direction of his thoughts. Vader extricated himself from the bacta tank, letting the remnants of the healing fluid drip onto the floor though regretting the waste. He reached up to the breathing mask and the tubing which connected it back to the machine. He couldn’t see his own suit here, but even if there had been some improvement to the state of his lungs he doubted he could do without any sort of apparatus altogether. 

Luke took a step forwards hesitantly. Vader reached out for their connection. The bond had laid quiescent during his healing trance and it did not feel right to be absent the sense of his son’s emotions. He had grown used to simply knowing how Luke felt. He detected a tentative hope from his son - he was not blind to the fact that Luke had wanted to try this bacta submersion for a long time now. It was natural that he wanted to see the results. 

“How are you feeling?” Luke asked him. His hand came forwards, as though wanting to touch. Yes, that physical contact and comfort was precisely what his son wanted, Vader realised, reading intent through their bond. The only reason he hadn’t done so was respect for Vader’s own personal space - and indeed in the past he had been wary of getting too close. But that was more because of the suit and his own prosthetics rather than an unwillingness on his part - the control panel that plugged into the ports on his chest was too susceptible to a touch in the wrong place, and his old limbs had not been calibrated for sensitive or delicate motions. It was why he had come to use the Force for those things. 

As he was now though… If Luke was truly desirous of this, he would not deny it to his son. Mindful of the tubing from his mask, he opened his arms to sweep Luke into a gentle hug. “I am well,” he said. Even his voice was stronger than it had been, though muffled by the breathing mask. 

Luke let out a soft noise and hugged him back. His son seemed so small like this. His head did not come up any higher than his chest. A surge of warmth ran through him - love and the urge to protect him. Luke was strong, growing in experience every day, but there was still so much in the galaxy out there that could hurt him. That was why Vader needed to continue to live, no matter what he had done, no matter whether he deserved to or not. So he could fulfil his unspoken promise. So that when Luke relented and took the throne of the Empire, Vader was there to ensure no enemy could touch him. To hand him the galaxy - for Luke was the only one he could trust to do the right thing with it. 

To the side, someone coughed. Vader lifted his head - Kix was standing by the door. He looked exhausted. And there was something different… Vader narrowed his eyes, knowing his eyesight was not the best without his mask to augment it. Kix had shaved the short fuzz of his normal haircut down to the scalp, and there was a glint of something metal on the side of his head. 

The realisation came swiftly, and with it a weight lifted off his shoulders. Kix had been told then, and he’d acted swiftly. He’d had his chip removed, and Vader knew Kix - he wouldn’t have done so until every other clone under his care had had theirs taken out first. Then it was done. What he should have done years ago. 

“Sir,” Kix said. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I’ll need to check you over. See how much good the bacta’s done.”

Reluctantly, Vader stepped away from the embrace, though he left his hands resting lightly on his son’s shoulders. “Very well,” he said. “And afterwards I need to speak to your _vode.”_

“Yes sir, I think that would be a good idea.” Kix looked uneasy. “I fear some of them are blaming themselves for what happened.”

He could not allow that to continue. “Then the sooner I speak with them the better.”


	41. Chapter 41

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is the much-awaited conversation between Vader and Dogma, and Piett focuses on the coming war.

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis system, Outer Rim Territories**

Luke had been nervous about waking his father up. Of course he had been, when they had so little idea about how much good the bacta would even do. Not to mention the mood Vader had been in before he’d gone under. The more Luke had thought about that in the intervening time, the less he liked it. The empty, flat nothingness couldn’t be anything good. Perhaps the healing trance might have helped that, but he wouldn’t know for sure until after it was over.

The time had come though. All the signs had been positive from the readings Kix was taking. The bacta had done about as much as it was capable of. Things had been moving on outside the medbay as well. All the clones Luke had brought with him from Vjun had undergone the surgery to remove the chips in their head. That still left those who had stayed behind to man the garrison, and who knew if Sidious’ order had made it through to them. Even if it hadn’t, Luke couldn’t just allow them to continue on with the horrible little devices inside them, and he knew his father would feel the same way. Ensuring _that_ problem was dealt with was going to have an important place on the agenda - but vital as it was it couldn’t be the only thing on there.

The Emperor didn’t know that Arkanis was under their control yet. The HoloNet links to the wider galaxy were still operational, and although it was obvious that an awful lot of things were being suppressed by the Empire, it was possible to work out a little of what was going on just by what _wasn’t_ being said. It was chaos out there. Chaos in fits and starts, in pockets that hadn’t yet boiled over into an uncontrollable mess, but chaos all the same. Just as they had all predicted, the Empire was tearing itself apart over Vader’s ultimatum.

There had already been pings from the probe droids left behind in the Christophsis system and it hadn’t even been a week since they’d left there. Luke knew his father had intended to run some kind of war games to prepare his new fleet for the battles to come, but it was starting to look like there wouldn’t be much time. They might simply have to learn as they went, tempered in the heat of the fight. That had seemed to work for the Alliance, so Luke wasn’t about to knock it as a way of doing things.

Inside the room set aside for his father’s bacta tank, Vader floated in a bubble of quiet Force energy, silent and still. Luke knew it was perfectly natural - that it was meant to be helping - but it still felt wrong somehow. Vader was… he was an icy well, a dark sun of power. He was never _peaceful_ ; his emotions might range all over the place and mostly tend towards the negative side of the spectrum, but they were always present and always felt to the extreme. Seeing him like this was… strange.

It also let him see just how much had been done to his father. Not only the prosthetics, which were even more extensive than he’d at first realised, but all of the other metal as well. The ports that burrowed into his skin. The places where flesh bulged around the unnaturally straight lines of things buried beneath the surface. The _collar_ of the life support suit that didn’t seem like it could be removed. His father’s skin itself, paler than bleached bone, than ash, wrinkled and warped by scars. Luke knew some of the story of what had happened. It had been part of what Vader had told him, in those early days when he was still coming to accept the truth of who his father really was. It had been clear though that they were painful memories, and he hadn’t pried into more than what Vader had been willing to speak about.

Maybe he should have. Maybe it would’ve helped him understand what he saw right now.

This was all besides the point though. He was just trying to distract himself from what he was meant to be doing. Luke called on the Force, on the same Light Side energy he’d lent to his father to start the trance off in the first place. He reached out to the quiet, peaceful, inward-turned presence of Vader, felt him reach back and begin to surface with it.

“Now,” Luke told Kix, who nodded and began to drain the bacta fluid from the tank. After a few long moments Vader’s eyes flickered open. Surprisingly they were as blue as Luke’s own, not the yellow-gold they usually were. It was something to do with the Dark Side, wasn’t it? Even now the colour was beginning to seep in around the edges as the Light dissipated. The tank’s hatch hissed open, and Vader grabbed hold of the edges of it to pull himself out - then hesitated.

Luke felt for their connection, suddenly worried that something was wrong. Nothing seemed to be. He sensed… surprise. Relief? More - a palpable _lack_ of pain. Luke smiled, feeling his own emotions rise up in his chest. It had worked then, at least partially. It was more than he’d had any right to hope for. Even that horrid flatness and emptiness inside his father’s head had eased a bit. That would have been more the work of the trance than the bacta though.

“Father?” he said, a little hesitant given Vader’s apparent reluctance to take that final step out of the bacta tank. His voice seemed to spur his father into action though. Remnants of bacta fluid mixed with dead tissue that had sloughed off during the healing process dripped to the floor. There was an ease to his movements that hadn’t been there before, Luke was sure of it. He took a few steps forward himself, unsure how steady Vader would be after a week submerged. He felt Vader reach out towards him through their bond, mind brushing against mind. “How are you feeling?” Luke asked.

To his surprise, before he knew it he had been swept up into an embrace, his father’s arms almost enveloping him completely. Luke buried himself in his father’s chest, though being careful not to nudge any of the ports or other metalwork that looked delicate or tender. He felt himself relax instinctively. This was… something he hadn’t known he wanted - but only because he had never actually thought about it. Vader gave off the impression he didn’t like to be touched - but perhaps that was only because of the suit itself, and because it had been so long that he’d forgotten what it even _felt_ like.

Feeling a pang of empathy, Luke hugged his father tighter.

“I am well,” Vader told him. There seemed to be a bit of improvement to the strength of his voice, which made Luke hopeful that the bacta might have done some good for his lungs as well. Warmth and love was pulsing through their bond - he didn’t want to let go and he could feel that his father didn’t either. They didn’t need to though - there wasn’t anything that needed their immediate attention.

Somewhere off to the side, Kix coughed loudly. Vader pulled back, his attention turning away towards the clone.

“Sir,” Kix said. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I’ll need to check you over. See how much good the bacta’s done.”

Of course. Luke let go, feeling a little foolish. The bacta might have been a big help but it couldn’t work miracles, and Kix would need to run some tests to see where things stood with his father’s health. Vader stepped away, although his hands still remained resting on Luke’s shoulders. The metal of his prosthetics was strangely warm, perhaps even more so than standard human temperature, which Luke hadn’t expected. He’d thought they would be cold to the touch, like most metal. Heat dispersal from their power sources?

“Very well,” Vader said to the medic. “And afterwards I need to speak to your _vode._ ”

“Yes sir, I think that would be a good idea.” Kix seemed uneasy when Luke turned to look. “I fear some of them are blaming themselves for what happened.” That… maybe wasn’t as much of a surprise as it should have been. The clones might not have been in control of themselves, but judging by what they’d told themselves after killing the Jedi, it might not have felt that way at the time.

“Then the sooner I speak with them the better,” Vader said. Perhaps they would believe it coming from him in a way they wouldn’t from anyone else. Luke could agree it was worth a try.

Kix came over to transfer Vader’s breathing apparatus over from the bacta tank connector to something a bit more portable. Then Luke followed his father and Kix through into another room - not the main medbay itself, but just off from it. Luke didn’t know very much about medicine, so the various scanning and examinations that followed meant very little to him. From the low undercurrent of satisfaction he could detect from Kix though, things seemed to be going well.

“The readings from the mask’s return flow are better than I expected,” Kix remarked, indicating the apparatus Vader still wore.

“What does that mean?” Luke asked.

“Essentially… sir, you should be able to go without the mask. For short periods at least.”

Vader’s eyes widened in surprise. Force or no Force, Luke found him far easier to read like this, when he could see his face. He supposed his father hadn’t had any _need_ to hide his expressions for the last twenty years. 

“Truly?” Vader asked.

Kix nodded. “I do mean short periods,” he warned. “The damage was too extensive, too old, for things to heal any more than they did. But it’s still more than I was honestly hoping for. Perhaps we have the Force trance to thank for that.”

“In that at least the Jedi might have had something of very small merit,” Vader said, which was more than Luke would ever have expected him to admit. “However, if you are finished now Medic Kix…?”

Kix nodded. “I expect you’ll be wanting your armour again.”

Vader paused. “Did you have something else in mind?” he asked.

“Not specifically,” Kix admitted. “And believe me, we all appreciate the protection your armour gives you. It’s only that I’m sure something more comfortable and maybe more manoeuvrable could be made.” One which didn’t have the same disadvantages of the old one, Luke privately filled in. That control box on the chest, for one thing. Or that heavy shoulder plating. Or if there was some way to get the collar-piece off…

“I will take it under consideration,” Vader allowed. “Now however…”

Kix nodded. He opened a cupboard - flush to the wall its door had been almost invisible - and began to bring out the various pieces. Vader dressed quickly, using the Force at times to augment his actions. Luke got the feeling that the armour had originally been designed so that he would have to be helped into it. Just one more method of control for Sidious to use.

“Where are Dogma and the others?” Vader asked once he was done - and his voice was once again that familiar modulated baritone.

“This way,” Kix said. Luke already knew where the clones were staying during their recovery, both from the injuries they’d received before he and Ezra had been able to put them to sleep and from the chip removal, but he let the medic lead the way. He hadn’t actually been to visit the clones yet. It hadn’t felt quite right with his father still healing. Vader should be the first person to speak to them. Besides, before the chips had been taken out it had been necessary to keep them restrained - Sidious’ order had kept on driving them to escape and the way it was affecting their minds meant they made no secret of their intentions. They would have scoured the ship until they found Vader and killed him. Kix had been working round the clock with his medic-droids to get the operations done as quickly as possible.

Luke had initially expected that the clones would be given separate rooms for their convalescence, but Kix had told him that the presence of brothers around was actually more helpful than being apart. As a result, there were plenty of curious clone faces turning their way when he, Kix and Vader stepped through their door.

For a moment tension vibrated in the air like a living thing. Luke realised he was half holding his breath. This was the ultimate test, after all. If anything of the chips’ control remained it would show itself now, when faced with the object of its murderous command. He needn’t have worried - and he knew that, but his heart didn’t know what his head did. All that he saw from the clones around them was shame.

There was no reason for them to be ashamed - they hadn’t been in control of themselves. But again, how someone felt about things wasn’t always affected by logic. He hoped his father would be able to set their minds at ease.

At the far end of the room, someone stood up. It was Dogma - that tattoo was unmistakable.

“Sir,” he said, saluting. “It’s… a relief to see you well.” His voice half-cracked in the middle of the sentence, heavy with emotion.

“My health is the least of our concerns,” Vader replied. “You have suffered far more grievously.”

Dogma shifted on his feet. Luke didn’t need to stretch his senses detect the discomfort pouring off him in the Force. “I… we… did our best to kill you. How could any of us regret what your servants had to do to protect you? It’s no less than we deserve.”

“Untrue,” Vader said. “You do not deserve punishment for what you were forced to do. The fault is mine…”

“No sir!” Dogma said quickly, interrupting. “I know what you’re going to say. We all knew about the chips, and none of us believed Fives or Rex. But just because the chips made us do… that… it doesn’t mean we can be trusted now they’ve been taken out! I… you know what I did. On Umbara. I’ve still got that potential in me. Who knows what we’re going to be like with the chips out - maybe all traitors, deserters, Separatist-types like Rex has become!” He said all of this very fast, like he’d been wanting to get it off his chest for a while. Luke could feel his distress.

No-one else in the room seemed to want to speak. Luke had noticed that about the clones when he was on Vjun. When someone stepped forward, they automatically became the spokesman for the group, and everyone else just let them present their views. Perhaps it was just a clone thing?

Dogma wasn’t being reasonable though! Surely he could see that he was making a lot of assumptions - and Rex wasn’t _like_ that! He wasn’t a bad person for joining the Rebel Alliance, that was just Imperial prejudice talking. It wasn’t some kind of character flaw to want to fight the Empire! Surely what Dogma was saying wasn’t what _all_ the clones thought?

“Dogma, what are you expecting me to do to you?” Vader asked.

Dogma’s straight-spined posture stiffened even more, if that was possible. “Just what you ought to sir, for your safety. Execute me.”

Luke couldn’t stop himself flinching. Next to him, Kix swore in Mando’a, and even Vader lapsed into Huttese to say something that Luke would never have dared repeat in front of his Aunt and Uncle.

“No,” Vader growled. “That will not happen. It is _not_ deserved.”

“I betrayed you,” Dogma said, keeping his voice flat, forcing it emotionless. “I attacked you. This was my second chance and I proved that I’m dangerous.”

“Krell’s death was more than earned,” Vader told him. “I would have killed him myself had I been given the chance. I petitioned Kamino for your release afterwards but they would not return you. It took the rise of the Empire for my authority to be sufficient to _that_ task.”

“Sir?”

“Krell betrayed your trust before you ever betrayed him. He was not worthy of your loyalty.”

“He was a General,” Dogma insisted. “Yes, he’d turned against us. His orders were bad, and he intended to defect to the Separatists. But the rules _must_ be followed! He was arrested and he should have gone to trial. I was angry, and that turned into aggression against authority. The whole situation revealed that about me, about what I’m capable of.”

For a moment Vader remained silent. Then he said, “In the circumstances anger would be justified. I have been negligent. I allowed the chips to remain despite discovering what Sidious is capable of. The situation should have been re-examined. That none of you considered it is irrelevant. I am your commander; you are my responsibility. If anyone has been betrayed, it is you.”

“I don’t accept that,” Dogma said sharply.

“Neither do I accept _your_ premise,” Vader answered. “You will not die by _my_ hand Dogma.”

“No-one is dying and no-one is killing anyone,” Kix said. He was scowling. “Not after I’ve done so much hard work putting you all back together. Dogma, you’re being ridiculous.”

“He’s right,” Luke said, speaking before he was aware that he’d decided to. “All of this… it’s something terrible, something that should never have happened, but it’s the Emperor who’s behind it all. The only person we should be blaming is him. You’ve already forgiven each other - you’re both trying to take the blame onto _yourselves_ , for the Force’s sake!”

“It’s not as simple as that,” Dogma said. “There has to be punishment, because there have to be rules, order. Otherwise we have no honour as soldiers.”

“Are you going to punish yourself if Lord Vader won’t then?” Kix demanded. “Is that your plan?”

“No, because that wouldn’t be right either!” Dogma said sharply. “As any _vod_ here could tell you.”

This seemed a signal for the other clones. There was a generally uneasy shifting of bodies before someone actually spoke up. Judging from the markings on his armour, Luke felt pretty sure it was Gamma - and felt a stab of pain to see that he was missing one arm just above the elbow. Ezra’s work.

“I side with Kix on this one Commander,” Gamma said. “I’ve never claimed not to be responsible for what I’ve done, and I’m including this mess in that statement even if maybe that’s not strictly true, but our General has said we’re forgiven. That’s the end of it. No-one is going to be handing out punishment so… we have to put the whole thing behind us best we can.”

Someone else nodded, and there were a few murmurs of agreement.

“Nice to see some of my _vode_ are sensible,” Kix said, rolling his eyes a little.

“Your brothers speak wisely,” Vader told Dogma, adding to the chorus. Luke just didn’t know how much of an effect it would really have. He had known Dogma for long enough to know how stubborn and fixed in his ways he was. The fact that he and the other clones had been taken over by this power outside of their control would be hard enough for anyone to deal with and Dogma had this mental inflexibility that only made things worse. He was listening to the words, but Luke was willing to bet they weren’t sinking in - and he wasn’t the only person who knew that judging from Kix’s expression.

It might have been that which made the medic say, “Alright. Enough of this. Dogma, Gamma, all of you, you need to rest. You’re all still recovering, and too much stress isn’t good for you. Let’s table this for now.”

“One final thing,” Vader said. He looked around the room, the eyes of his helmet meeting those of each and every clone. “By failing to act, I have failed in my duty to you. If you wish to leave, I will understand.”

“No!” Gamma said sharply, and he was not the only one. “No,” he said again more quietly. “I don’t think any of us want that, as far as I know sir. _I_ don’t feel there’s anything to forgive, but even if there was, I’d forgive you. You’ve earned our loyalty a hundred times over, over these past years. One mistake - when the Emperor is someone we’ve been serving for most of our lives and who before recently we had no _reason_ to question - that doesn’t undo all the rest of it.”

Vader’s head dipped towards his chest. Luke felt the upswell of emotion from his father, and the way it made the Force shiver all around them.

“Thank you,” he said, as quietly as the vocoder allowed. “Now, as Kix has requested, I will leave you to your rest.”

\----

Aphra stared down at the pile of datapads resting on her table and swore under her breath. She wasn’t sure what she had imagined her next job for Darth Vader might be, but this certainly hadn’t been it. She was in a bad enough mood as it was after everything that had happened on the Holonet Station. Not just getting her knuckles rapped over what BeeTee and Triple-Zero had done, but the clones turning on their master as well. Vader was… well he just was. She had difficulty articulating everything he meant to her as a symbol more than a man, but the point of it was that how _dare_ they do that! How dare _anyone_ hurt Darth Vader! He shouldn’t be _able_ to be hurt because… because he was power, and strength and… Because if _he_ could be hurt then _anyone_ could be hurt no matter how strong they were.

She shoved that thought away as hard as she could. Nope. She didn’t want to think about it any more. This mountain of dullness in front of her was at least a distraction. It had been delivered the other day by Luke and a couple of stormtroopers he’d co-opted. He’d at least had the decency to look embarrassed about it. Force, it was like being back on her undercover stint. Scutwork.

Aphra did appreciate that it was important. From what Luke had said, the datapads included not just some ancient files he wanted her to write a translation program for, but some of Darth Vader’s sealed medical files as well, which she was meant to be cracking. It just wasn’t the kind of work she had build her career around, if committing larceny and various other criminal acts in the pursuit of knowledge and dangerous weaponry could be called a career.

She _was_ going to do it. For one thing it might make Luke less annoyed at her, and given how Vader tended to act where his son was concerned that could only be a good thing for her. The translation coding might actually be the easier task of the two, if only because she’d had to do quite a bit of that sort of thing when it came to the more obscure or ancient of artefacts she’d been digging up in the back end of the galaxy. On the other hand, Vader’s records would be protected by the best firewalling the Empire’s credits would buy, which was no joke. It would be a challenge - but Aphra liked challenges. They kept her from getting bored, and when she was bored she just couldn’t stop herself from making trouble.

She sat down, fished the first datapad out of the pile and connected it up to her own personal ‘pad. Then she cracked her knuckles and began to type.

\----

Piett had been very glad to see the Arkanis system again. Or more to the point, he’d been happy to see the fleet arrayed in various orbits around the planet. These were people he could trust - people who had been offered a choice and come down on the right side of it. Unlike the Captains of the Christophsis Defense Force. Destroying them had not been a difficult undertaking for _Executor,_ but that did not mean it was a task Piett had enjoyed. These had been his comrades once. Necessity made them enemies, but he could only hope it was not a state of affairs that would last for long. He had faith that the galaxy would come to see the rightness of their cause, and even if much blood had to be shed along the way, that was simply the way of the world.

There had been some who had already begun to answer Lord Vader’s mustering. _Executor_ had seeded the system before they’d left with hundreds of probe droids which acted as couriers for any ships that showed up wishing to join them. It was the safest way, since the HoloNet couldn’t be entirely trusted. Rumours had long been that the Rebel Alliance had their own network of hyperspace communications arrays supplementing whatever backdoors into the HoloNet their slicers had created. _He_ unfortunately had no such convenience. The droids had been modified to be hyperspace capable, if only over short distances, and could jump around enough before reaching Arkanis as to make tracking them near impossible.

So far they had brought messages from single ships at a time, cruisers or Star Destroyers mostly. One Piett had had a chance to look into the personal records of their crew, the droids had been sent back to hand over the coordinates for Arkanis.

As for Lord Vader himself, he had made a full recovery. Or better than full, if Piett’s understanding was correct. There had been no orders from him as of yet, but the plan which had been laid out before the Christophsis venture went awry had been for a series of training exercises to bring their fleet into full readiness. Not having heard anything to the contrary, he had to assume this would still be going ahead. However had it had been Piett’s decision, he would have chosen to make said war games live-fire exercises, ones directed against soft targets. Between them the score of ship Captains had enough military intelligence in their heads to have their choice of destinations, and the Emperor could not fortify all of them. In this at least Vader’s Navy had the advantage - but it was one that could last only as long as Arkanis remained secret.

That could not remain the case forever. The only option then was to diversify, spread themselves out. Even if Palpatine took a long time to find them the fact remained that one single system could not supply the needs of twenty Star Destroyers and _Executor_ for long. Besides, their strength was growing with every week. The goal of all this was to cut the Empire out from under Palpatine - well, let them make a start of it! The Outer Rim held many systems that were ripe for the taking, native plagues of pirates and similar nuisances notwithstanding.

Perhaps he ought to approach Lord Vader directly? It wasn’t something he would have tried before for fear of Vader’s reputation and the desire to keep his throat uncrushed, but he believed now that he had a better idea of what Vader was looking for in his subordinates. Piett would be foolish to ignore the long list of officers Vader had killed in the past, but from what he had been able to find out it was failure rather than initiative which provoked his ire.

Vader was no Ozzell, after all.

“You have the conn, Captain Sinan,” he said, addressing the woman who had effectively replaced him in his old position in the chain of command. She nodded sharply, and took his position in the center of the bridge between the two control pits. Piett headed for the elevators, and began his short descent to Lord Vader’s floor in the conning-tower.

It would in fact be the first time he set eyes on Vader since the initial arrival at Christophsis, Piett mused. He’d rather been left to his own devices in the intervening days. Commander Skywalker had seemed content to wait until his father’s recovery was complete rather than stepping up to the business of command. That was something he would have to amend if he wanted to be worthy of the position Lord Vader intended to put him in. Instead he had been spending most of his time off with that Inquisitor that tended to tag around at his heel - and his Rebel sister. The Jedi. Piett suppressed a brief shudder. Now there was a problem with no easy solution - or at least not one Vader would countenance. He did sympathise with her position as the only surviving political leader of Alderaan but evidence suggested she’d been part of the Rebel Alliance long before any kind of justified anger could have driven her there.

It would be so much more convenient if one day she simply… disappeared out of an airlock.

There had been a few Axillan pirates he’d had to do that to, knowing the government officials were too deep in their pockets for any more than a mockery of a trial. That was not really conduct befitting an officer of the Imperial Navy though, even if it was simpler and cleaner.

He had reached the door to Lord Vader’s chambers. Piett straightened his uniform with a quick tug and activated the comm to make Vader aware of his presence. After a few moments, the door slid open.

“Enter Admiral,” Vader’s voice said from inside.

Piett did so. The room was dark compared to the corridor outside and it took a few moments for his eyes to adjust. He could not deny his surprise once they had. Vader had divested himself of the heavily armoured life-support suit he usually wore. Instead he was garbed in a black robe over what looked like overlapping sets of black tunics. The robe itself was hooded, and the shadow of that concealed most of Lord Vader’s face - although there did still seem to be a mask of some kind covering the lower half of his face. The style of the outfit was strangely familiar, like something he had seen once years ago, but not quite singular enough to have stuck firmly in his mind.

Unless… well, he _had_ been thinking about the Jedi. But Vader would never wear _their_ clothing.

“Milord,” Piett said, coming to attention. Vader was sitting, no, kneeling. Had he been meditating?

“Your thoughts betray your surprise Admiral,” Vader said. His mask might not be his old one, but it seemed to retain the same type of vocoder within it. His voice hadn’t changed at all.

“I had heard of your excellent recovery sir,” Piett replied. “I had not realised it was quite as excellent as this.”

Vader rose - a fluid motion that seemed almost alien in comparison to how Piett had known him. Vader had never been clumsy, but the simple mass of him coupled with the nature of his mysterious injuries had forced a kind of deliberation; no wasted effort or unnecessary movement. Vader folded his arms behind his back - and that at least was familiar. It let the robe fall open more at the front, giving Piett a better look at what was underneath.

He’d kept the belt from the old suit; his lightsaber was hanging from it. The rest though… and where had he even got it? There were a number of fabrication specialists on board, but they were there to make minor repairs to damaged uniforms, not create something out of whole cloth. Piett couldn’t think of any other option though.

“I have been neglecting you Admiral,” Vader said.

Piett hadn’t been thinking of it in those terms exactly, and he would never have said it out loud, but yes. “It’s not my place to make claims on your time milord,” he said, being diplomatic.

“You are the Admiral of my fleet. You know better.”

Piett was not going to point out that up until very recently Vader had been unconscious in a bacta tank. Reminding Darth Vader of vulnerability, however short-lived, could not go over well. Still he took the point. Vader would not brook any disrespect, but he equally didn’t want a healthy fear to get in the way of Piett doing his job. He would simply have to keep reminding himself of that when the breath threatened to stick in his throat in anticipation. Vader cared about results.

“We remain in a state of readiness for any training exercises you might have in mind milord,” he said.

Vader’s head tilted slightly. Was that a slight chill in the air, or simply Piett’s imagination. For that matter, was that the glint of yellow in the depths of Vader’s hood? “You have something specific in mind, Admiral Piett.”

Piett swallowed. “Yes sir,” he admitted.

“If I did not trust your ideas, I would not have made you an Admiral,” Vader said. “Speak.”

Piett did as he was commanded.


	42. Part Five: Conquest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vader's campaign begins and further reinforcements arrive, Gamma gets a new arm, and Luke makes some progress with the Temple documents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the late update. The muse hasn't really been co-operating recently, but now it's NaNo time again things seem to be going a bit better.

**1 ABY - ISD- _Chimera_ , Ryloth, Outer Rim Territories**

The fleet came out of hyperspace in good order, maintaining formation. From the bridge of _Chimera_ , Captain Pellaeon could see the small dusty globe of Ryloth dead ahead, tiny at this distance. Somewhere in orbit above it would be the trio of Star Destroyers guarding it - more than one might expect for a backwater Rim world like this one, but Ryloth had a reputation for being troublesome. Its people had a history of guerrilla resistance which - if Pellaeon remembered his history rightly - had its roots back in the Clone Wars and the Separatists’ campaigns to take the planet. Once the war was over, those bands of freedom fighters refused to accept that the Republic was now the Empire, and turned their hands to terrorism instead.

The end result had not been to remove the Empire from their planet, as the Twi’leks might have hoped. Instead successive planetary governors had been forced to take harsher and harsher measures with the populace, such that at least a third were now imprisoned in internment camps of one sort or another. It was the kind of arrangement that was disparagingly termed slavery, and Pellaeon had to admit that whatever the original intention, the system had degraded over time to such an extent that... it was true.

It was things like this, the gradual decline of the Empire’s ideals and giving over to the venal weaknesses of its men and women, that they were now fighting against. There was a purity of purpose that had somehow been lost. Or as Lord Vader said, had been allowed to fade away simply because it was not relevant to the Emperor’s true aims. They would take it back though. Take it back and remake it, better this time. That was why Pellaeon had agreed to treachery when Vader’s agent first approached him.

He hadn’t looked for the rise in status that had come with it. That had been incidental, but if unexpected he wasn’t about to look askance at it either. From First Officer to Captain of _Chimera_ , and now made Acting Rear-Admiral for the duration of this operation - which was a test as much as it was a promotion.

They had brought nine Star Destroyers with them to Ryloth; almost half the fleet. The numbers were not necessary to take the planet, but the aim here was to train their ships and officers in working together in addition to their military goals. The three trines would approach in slightly different vectors, and only one would initially attack at a time. This would pit the chosen group against equal numbers and make a proper test of their abilities and tactics. If it began to look as though the battle was not going their way the trine was under orders to pull out and let a fresh group take their place. The defenders stood no chance of victory, and this would provide valuable learning experience.

“Begin approach,” Pellaeon ordered. His trine would be the last to swap in, if it became necessary. More important was his role in recording and analysing the battle as it progressed. Vader and Admiral Piett would be expecting a detailed report on their return to Arkanis. Intensive feedback had been promised - or perhaps, threatened.

The Ryloth Defence Fleet had noticed their approach. They would have seen Lord Vader’s broadcast, Pellaeon assumed, so they might suspect whose hand was behind the sudden appearance of so many vessels they had not been told to expect. And as he had thought, they were being hailed.

It was still possible that there would be no battle. The Ryloth fleet would be given the opportunity to join them, naturally. “Open the channel,” Pellaeon ordered. “Let’s see what they have to say.”

There was a scowl on the face of the man on the other end of the line. He made no attempt at niceties. “This is Commodore Ulthar. Who the kriff are you and what are you doing here?”

“Rear-Admiral Gilad Pellaeon of the ISD- _Chimera,_ ” Pellaeon replied coolly. “Part of Vader’s Fleet.”

There was a brief flicker of emotion across the other man’s face, but it was quickly schooled. “Then you must be here to stake your claim on this system,” he said. Pellaeon could not read him, but certainly he was thinking hard. “Of course, it’s my duty to stand in your way,” he said eventually.

“I am sorry to hear that,” Pellaeon replied. He raised a hand to signal the comms officer to end the transmission, but the Commodore cut it off from his end before he could. Sensors pinged as they detected weaponry on the far-off Star Destroyers coming online. Pellaeon sighed. He understood honour and duty. It was still a pity. “Send in Alpha Squadron,” he said. “And monitor for hyperspace transmissions. I am sure he will be calling for help.”

Would help come? Now that was the question. All evidence suggested that the Imperial Navy was more concerned with tearing itself apart, from what they had managed to piece together from beneath HoloNet propaganda and the rumours the new ship-Captains had brought with them. One more distress call amongst hundreds might easily go unnoticed. It wasn’t as though they had much choice though; they simply had to take the risk that the Emperor might find out about their location.

They had to be strong enough to survive that when it eventually did happen.

\----

**1 ABY - ISD- _Vigilance_ , Christophsis system, Outer Rim Territories**

Rae Sloane hadn’t been sure what she would find when she arrived in the Christophsis system. It had seemed to be the only lead she had as the origin point of Darth Vader’s broadcast, but it was equally clear that Vader would not remain in the system for long after ending the transmission. She wouldn’t be the only person looking for him, and not all of them would have come down on his side. The Emperor wasn’t going to sit idly by for one thing.

It was because of just that fact that Sloane had acted so quickly. Almost the moment she’d made the decision she’d been recalling the Star Destroyers under her command, comming their Captains and making sure they had seen the broadcast too. Besides the _Vigilance_ there were five other Star Destroyers in her fleet and she knew their Captains well. She had been reasonably sure which of them would be clear-sighted enough to acknowledge Vader’s point, and indeed she’d been right, but it had been necessary for her to order _Punisher’s_ First Officer to put a blaster bolt in Captain Ruthveld’s back. Not that _that_ was any great loss to the Imperial Navy.

Or were they Vader’s Navy now? Sloane still thought of herself as being loyal to the Empire itself and still a part of it, but this was a civil war now. There would have to be some way of differentiating between the old Empire, and the Empire which Vader wanted to create - or perhaps, renew.

It wasn’t relevant yet. These things had a way of arising organically in any case.

The infinitesimal shudder of the deck beneath her feet - the rumble of engines capable of catapulting over a thousand meters of durasteel between the stars - increased slightly as _Vigilance_ began to pick up sublight speed, turning as she went to bring her towards the system’s main planet. Her scanners had been active ever since they’d dropped out of hyperspace, but as yet they hadn’t picked anything up.

There was a debris field in far-orbit above Christophsis.

“Magnify that,” Sloane ordered, and watched as one of the bridge crew pulled it up on their monitor. Pieces of slate-grey hull tumbled lazily, scorched around the edges with turbolaser fire. Her mouth thinned. Was this all that was left of the Christophsis Defence Fleet? Or were these other vessels which had come here in search of Darth Vader?

Whatever the truth was, the debris field was entirely inert. No signs of life remained anywhere.

Somewhere on the bridge a scanner pinged. Sloane whipped around and strode over to look at it. “Picking up something small sir,” the ensign said, before she had to ask. “It just came online.”

“A ship?” Sloane asked. “Or perhaps a probe droid?”

The ensign focused on her terminal for a moment. “The latter sir,” she said. “It’s transmitting a signal - Imperial codes.”

“Let’s see what it has to say for itself then.”

The transmission came up on screen. [STATE ALLEGIANCE] Rae frowned at it. She had to admit though that it fit Vader’s character. He had a tendency for bluntness.

“Transmit our own message back,” she ordered. “Allegiance; Darth Vader.”

The reply was swift. [STATE NAME, RANK, SHIP]

“Do so,” Sloane said. “With my ident code, and those for the Captains in the rest of the fleet.” She folded her arms across her chest, resisting the urge to tap her fingers against her arm in a sign of impatience. She didn’t like being out here. She felt very… exposed. Who knew who else might show up?

[RECEIVED AND ACKNOWLEDGED] the droid sent back. [EXPECT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS SHORTLY]

“It… it’s jumped to hyperspace sir,” the ensign said nervously, after a moment.

She should have expected something like this. Vader wouldn’t risk sending anything via the HoloNet. The Imperial military channels were no longer safe for them, and there weren’t many other options. A drone couldn’t hold a sufficient power-source for anything other than very short-range jumps, not more than system to system. That probably meant Vader was not far away from here - although tracing the droid’s trajectory would get her nowhere.

For the moment at least, there was nothing she could do except wait.

“Let’s find some cover if we’re going to be stuck here for a while,” she said aloud. “Plot us a course for the nearest asteroid field. Once we arrive, have the fleet go to low-power and maintain readiness. I’ve no wish to be caught out if unfriendlies come calling.”

Waiting was monotonous, but it didn’t last as long as she had feared. Better, no other ships showed up in the intervening period. When the droid re-emerged on their sensors, it did so bearing co-ordinates, and Rae nearly laughed when she saw them.

“Arkanis,” she said, mostly to herself. “That’s hardly out of the way.” That wasn’t _entirely_ true, but given that the planet hosted an Imperial Academy, and more importantly was only one stop down the Corellian Run from here, she couldn’t imagine it remaining a secret for long. On the other hand as a staging ground for whatever forces Vader had pulled together it had much to recommend it. Sloane spared a brief moment of curiosity to wonder about what those other forces might include - Darth Vader wouldn’t have started a war without being prepared for it - but she would be finding out soon enough.

\----

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis system, Outer Rim Territories**

“Make a fist for me.”

Gamma did as he was told, trying to ignore the strange sensation of Kix fiddling around somewhere in the depths of his new prosthesis. The sensory link really didn’t know how to interpret that input, and so while it wasn’t painful it still came off as highly uncomfortable.

“Open,” Kix said, and tweaked something. “How’s that?” he asked, sitting back.

“Feels good,” Gamma replied. “Smooth.” You heard stories about bad cybernetics but this wasn’t anything like that. It was Lord Vader’s work, he was certain. Just as he had arranged for the top-of-the-line prosthetic legs Shortstack had needed when he’d first came to Vjun. It was evidence that he genuinely cared about them - and really, he was the only one who did these days. The rest of the Empire couldn’t give a kriff about the clones who had fought to defend it back when it was the Republic, and it wasn’t as though civvies could understand either.

It was that fact which took some of the sting out of what had happened with the control chips.

Gamma had been in the medbay for that awful conversation between Dogma and Lord Vader, and while he had let Dogma speak first in deference to his rank, that didn’t mean he agreed with much of what he’d been saying. His memory of the events on the HoloNet station was… strange, but he remembered enough. The Emperor’s command, and then the compulsion that had come over him, which he could only identify as compulsion looking back. At the time it had felt natural. But some part of him had still been aware that this was wrong - partly because he didn’t _think_ of Lord Vader as Anakin Skywalker any longer. Calling someone by a name they’d forsaken was just disrespectful. That dissonance had let him fight it, a little. Not enough to win. Just enough to make it all the more clear in the aftermath how little control he’d had.

Meat clankers. That's what Rex had called them, and he’d been right. They had all accepted it now as the truth, and he couldn’t be more thankful that Kix had gotten the _dawoor_ thing out of his head. All of them except Dogma apparently, since he still wanted to blame himself for what had happened and seemed to think it reflected some kind of character defect in them all but in him specifically. Gamma had been sympathetic up until the point when Dogma started calling for their execution.

Lucky for them all, Vader had not been willing to do anything like that. In fact Gamma came down more on _his_ side of the argument. He was their General and he had known what Rex and Fives believed since the beginning. He _should_ have looked into it. He _shouldn’t_ have allowed that to happen to them.

It hadn’t been malicious though. It hadn’t been a lack of care. Otherwise why everything else that he had done for them? So, yes, Gamma could find it in him to forgive Vader. He still was going to be sore about it for a while though - not that he’d have said any of that to Vader anyway, and certainly not in front of his son. The amount that he blamed Vader was really very small, in the scheme of things.

“So what now?” he asked Kix, once the medic had closed up the covering of his new arm. “Have you heard anything about if we’re going to be involved in the war effort yet?”

“For you the only thing that’s happening is a lot of physical therapy,” Kix told him sharply. “No-one is going to be following Lord Vader’s bad example when it comes to installing new prosthetics.”

“The General’s being the General huh,” Gamma said sympathetically. Kenobi and Tano had both been like that too - although it was better not to think about them these days.

“I’d sit on him if he wasn’t so damn big,” Kix complained. Gamma couldn’t help but laugh.

“Maybe if we all jumped on him,” he suggested. The image got a smile out of Kix - which was more than Gamma had seen from his _vod_ since the whole chip mess started.

“I invite you to try,” Kix said. “I can laugh when you get thrown across the room with the Force.”

“Hmm well…” Gamma leaned back on the medbay bed. “You could at least tell me the latest gossip.”

“I have other patients to see besides you,” Kix said, but hesitated. “I suppose I could spare a few minutes though.”

Gamma settled in to listen. This would be good for Kix, he was sure.

\----

“Here you go,” Aphra said, shoving a datapad into his hands. Luke blinked at her, not quite understanding what she was getting at.

“What is it?” he asked.

He could see her visibly struggling with the urge to say ‘it’s a datapad obviously’. “The translation program you asked for,” she said instead. “It’s buggy as kriff, admittedly, and the grammar of the stuff it spits out is atrocious, but it’s a start. We’ll keep working on it - or at least the tech department will. Personally I’m going to be concentrating on slicing the nonsense firewalls the Empire slapped over Lord Vader’s medical records.”

“Oh,” Luke said. “Uh, thank you Aphra.”

“Yeah well, I’ve got to make it up to you somehow don’t I,” she said, looking awkward. Luke realised she was talking about what the assassin droids had done to the holo-station’s broadcasting crew. He didn’t quite know how to answer her. For one thing he wasn’t actually sure she was sorry, at least not sorry that people had died. She was sorry she had made him angry, but that was about it. He did appreciate that she was trying to make amends, but she should do that by helping people in general, not just by helping him personally.

That wasn’t the kind of thing you said to someone who was trying to apologise though.

“This is going to be really useful for us,” he told her, holding up the ‘pad. “And important for winning this war so, again, thank you.”

“Anyway, I’ll let you know when there’s an update, to that or the other thing,” Aphra said, nodding sharply, and then she left him alone.

Luke sighed and went back inside his rooms. He might as well boot the ‘pad up and try the program out. He would be able to see how accurate it was when he compared it to what he’d been able to puzzle out based on his limited Amatakka, which in itself wasn’t much.

He ran a few of the files through the translator program and read over what came out the other end. As Aphra had said it was clunky, but it was legible. It would at least give them a place to start and help them identify any of the files which might hold something useful, even if they wouldn’t be able to trust that the wording was correct.

He should get Leia and Ezra together on this.

The lightsaber training they had been doing together had been going well, in his opinion. Ezra and his sister didn’t like each other, but they could work together. It was as much as Luke had hoped for, and he was enjoying being able to spar again. It was something that had fallen by the wayside in all that had happened since the vision that had shown him his father was in danger. It was even better when there was more than one person to fight, he had found. He had been getting too used to Ezra’s technique, even if in skill he was still far behind him. Leia made a nice change, and the challenge kept him sharp as well. He had even though in an idle moment that it might be nice to spar with the Inquisitors on board as well - although he wasn’t sure his father would approve of the idea. The Inquisitors weren’t even trusted enough to be let out of the brig unsupervised yet, and he could just imagine Vader speculating that one of them might still turn out to be an assassin who would try to kill him. It felt a little ridiculous, but it didn’t mean the risk wasn’t a real one.

Would Ezra be busy just now? Probably not. He didn’t have any particular job on the ship, and of course Leia… well, he would have to talk to Vader about the prison she was being kept in. It wasn’t right. It was inhumane. Surely his father would agree to _some_ other sort of arrangement?

He had been more successful than usual in getting past his father’s stubbornness recently. Luke couldn’t help smiling at that. The bacta immersion combined with the Jedi healing trance had caused enough improvement that Vader didn’t have to wear the awful life-support suit all the time now. His father had even ordered some new clothing made for himself, which looked a bit similar to the costumes of the Jedi - as much of them as Luke had been able to see in those degraded contraband holos. Perhaps it meant Vader was coming to terms with his past as a Jedi, or perhaps it was mostly coincidence. Either way, a weight of some kind seemed to have been lifted from him, some of the anger and hate in the Force around him leached away.

His father was still not ready to give up the Dark Side, but… this was progress! Luke had to keep being optimistic anyway. If Vader could change by even this much, then perhaps one day he would change enough to give up the idea of the Empire, and of Luke becoming the Emperor. He could hope at least.

For the moment though, they still had Sidious to worry about, and a lot of temple artefacts to go through in search of a solution.

\----

**1 ABY - Ryloth, Gaulus sector, Outer Rim Territories**

Cham Syndulla had seen the broadcast. It had been disseminated so widely that it was almost impossible not to have seen it, either at the time or from one of the secondary sources on the HoloNet which the Empire kept trying to shut down. Darth Vader was making a bid to take over the Empire. Oh, he had dressed it up in pretty words about ideals, but Cham knew better. He knew the kinds of atrocities that Vader had been a part of over the two decades of the Empire’s ascendency. He was a monster - morality didn’t concern him.

Cham had not met Vader in the flesh - if he had he would be dead - but he had seen the sort of things he was capable of from a distance, and he had seen the way he acted around the Emperor. Cham had tried to kill them both once, which had turned into a disaster with nothing to show for it, and which had only resulted in a further crackdown from the Imps. He had spent so many lives on that assassination attempt. Free Ryloth had taken a great blow back then, and it hadn’t been easy to rebuild. It had been a slow process over the years, but in some ways the heavier the hand of the Empire the better for Free Ryloth’s recruitment. When the alternatives facing you were slavery or little better than it, deciding to risk your life fighting for freedom became an easy choice.

Vader had been… terrifying. More than a man. He had seemed unstoppable, and nothing they had sent against him had worked. Cham felt sure he was not on board one of the Star Destroyers which had recently arrived in the system, if only because when Vader got involved any kind of plans or tactics went straight out the window in favour of something that should have been too ridiculous to work. Except that it did despite that. It had been what allowed Vader and the Emperor to slip through their traps again and again. No, the battle which had raged briefly above them had been too simple and straightforward to be Vader’s work.

Goodbye to their old masters, hello to the new masters. Cham did not expect anything to change for his people under this ‘new Empire’.

Perhaps the Rebel Alliance ought to be made aware of this. The one good thing about all this chaos was that it provided opportunity in the Empire’s weakness. He was certain the Rebellion would already be taking good advantage of it, but if they were able to offer some support here, it was possible that Ryloth would be able to throw off the shackles of the Empire once and for all. Vader wouldn’t be leaving all these ships here once the planet had been taken. He couldn’t afford to; he needed them for his war. Once they were gone, then it would be time to strike.

It was simply a bonus that this might give him the excuse to see his daughter again. It had been so long since their last contact, which had been during the business with the carrier ship, and that had not ended with them on the best of terms. Cham had done his best to keep track of Hera since then, but the Rebellion kept its cells in the dark about what each was doing, as was only wise. He knew that she was still alive, but little more.

He still had the comms ident for his contact within Phoenix Squadron. Commander Sato still commanded that particular cell, and trusted Free Ryloth enough to answer swiftly. Cham did not have long to wait before the human came on the line. He exchanged quick pleasantries, and then got down to business.

“I have some news for you,” he said. “Vader has sent a fleet to take Ryloth.”

Commander Sato stroked his chin. “That certainly is interesting information,” he said. “However I can sense you already have some ideas as to what we ought to be doing about it.”

“Of course,” Cham said. “Why else would I be calling? Once they think they have won they will leave Ryloth relatively undefended, and we will be presented with a perfect opportunity to strike.”

Sato sighed. He did not look enthusiastic in the way Cham had hoped. “If Free Ryloth was more willing to work with the Alliance as a whole you would have already been informed of this,” he said. “Such an action will simply be impossible. Vader has already made an arrangement with our leaders.”

Cham felt his lips pull back into a snarl with little conscious intent behind it. “An arrangement?” he said sharply. “Just what do you mean by that?”

“Vader approached us some time before making his announcement,” Sato explained. “His intention is to kill the Emperor and his war is causing chaos throughout the galaxy. We have agreed to a pact of nonaggression until this civil war is over. We will allow him to focus all his energies upon Palpatine’s forces and use the time to strengthen our own position by essentially doing the same.”

Cham’s anger had been growing ever stronger as he listened, and now he slammed his fist down hard on the holo-table in sheer frustration. “How could you?!” he demanded. “How could anyone agree to a peace with that _monster_? You fight for freedom, do you not? What freedom then for the people who exchange one version of the Empire for another - and in the process apparently lose all right to _your_ aid! Ryloth is no more free today than it was yesterday.”

“The time has come for us to look at the bigger picture,” Commander Sato said. “Perhaps you should as well.”

“What does my daughter think of all this?” Cham demanded.

“You would have to ask her that yourself Syndulla. It has been some time since I last spoke to her.”

Cham was momentarily distracted from his anger by a sudden surge of worry. “Why is that? She flies with Phoenix Squadron doesn’t she?”

“Recently she carried out a mission of high importance for our High Command.” This was not the first time Cham had heard whisperings of a ‘High Command’ within the Alliance - but they were no fools when it came to operational secrecy. The title was as much as a mere ally such as he would ever hear of them. “Since then she has been working directly with them - I know no more details about it, though I would not be permitted to share them even if I did.”

His Hera was moving up in the world then. He ought to be proud of her, but all he could think about was the risk. Yet it was no more risky than if she had remained with Free Ryloth, with him. “Can you at least get me her comms frequency?” he asked, clamping down on the anger that was still bubbling inside.

Sato hesitated. “I’ll see what I can do.”

\----

**1 ABY – SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis system, Outer Rim Territories**

Leia’s eyes were starting to blur after so long staring at a datapad screen. She hadn’t been keeping an eye on the time, but it felt like they had been at this for hours. She put a hand over her face, and then shifted to rubbing at her temples. The ghost of a headache was starting to threaten. When had been the last time she’d done as much reading as this? Not since she’d been a Senator, and even then she’d been stepping into a position her father had only just vacated, and he’d left a more than capable staff who went through the drier bills and documents for her. Had it been during her schooling then? It must have been.

Leia had known that she wanted to step into her father’s footsteps from a young age, and after a few years where she had failed to get distracted by any of the other career options her parents had suggested to her, Bail had arranged for the intensive private tutoring which had crammed the intricacies of their complex political system into her head. Or at least, the political system they’d had before Palpatine had torn the whole thing down to the ground. She was _good_ at concentrating, and she had never let staid, obfuscating, or downright _boring_ terminology defeat her. 

It wasn’t as though the temple documents were even dull. Leia _liked_ history, and there were enough tantalising hints about the day to day details of life on ancient Arkanis that she would have been glad of the time to read through them properly. That wasn’t what they were doing though. When they’d gotten together at the start of the day Luke had handed a stack of datapads to the Inquisitor and her, and they had started skimming. _That_ was what made it hard. Trying not to get distracted. Staying focused on the aim of all this - which was to find some way to stop the Emperor from cheating the death he so richly deserved. 

Luke had noticed her signs of tiredness - he shot her a concerned look. “I’m fine,” Leia told him. She turned her attention back to the ‘pad in front of her. Where had she been… She continued reading, correcting the grammar automatically inside her head.

_“...at the request of the diplomat from Rodia the Son of the Suns dispatched a tenth-part in fulfilment of our treaty…”_

That title had come up a lot. From context, it seemed to indicate some kind of military leader, although whether they were also a Force-user was less clear. To be both wouldn’t exactly be unprecedented - the Jedi had done their part during the Clone Wars, after all. What a ‘tenth-part’ might be was less clear. Perhaps a word that the translation program had taken too literally. She flicked through the rest of this file - more of the same. Not what they were looking for. She opened up the next file on the ‘pad. 

“ _Speculative analysis of the political consequences of our involvement in the current Rodian conflict…_ ” the file began, and Leia suppressed a sigh. Probably not useful either. She skimmed it all the same, for the sake of completeness. 

The rest of the files on this particular datapad proved no more fruitful, although if she ever wanted to learn about the socio-political ramifications of this particular small conflict now lost to history, she knew where to look. Leia picked up the next ‘pad on the stack, which had at least dwindled in size since this morning. Not that _that_ meant much - she had seen just how many of them were in the storeroom. When she booted it up and opened the first document though, she started to feel a bit more optimistic.

“ _Sith Philosophy_ ,” was the simple title. “ _Although the center of the Sith Empire’s power in the galaxy is distant from our own,_ ” she read, “ _it would be unwise to ignore the threat which they present, a threat both worldly and spiritual. Their wars against the Jedi - and thus against the entity of the Republic - may be waged under the banner of specific grievances with the Order, but they are equally about something which is fundamental to the Sith ideology. The primacy of power. It cannot be ignored that they are symbiont with the Aspect of Poison. The weight of its history impels them. A history of conquerors and slave-takers._

 _“This Aspect, which is called by them the ‘Dark Side of the Force’ is one which allows access to many abilities which even a beginning student of the Moons would realise to be unethical..._ ”

“I think I have something,” Leia said aloud. Luke and Ezra both looked up from their own datapads.”This is talking about the Sith - and it mentions their abilities.”

Luke came over to stand at her shoulder, scanning the screen. “It’s more promising than anything else we’ve found so far,” he said, smiling. 

“Let me copy this over to a spare datapad for you,” Leia suggested. “They seem to be grouped by topic so if this file is useful, maybe the rest will be too.”

“Good idea,” Luke replied. Leia could feel the surge of hope that had awakened inside him, and it was rising up inside her as well. She didn’t like to think of what she was doing here as helping Vader’s cause. It was about killing Palpatine. Anything else was just a byproduct of that. 

One of those byproducts, she hoped, would be to learn more about the Arkanii. She wouldn’t have the time to devote to reading anything that wasn’t immediately helpful for now, but if this lead panned out… 

And assuming Vader didn’t think of something else to do with her first.


	43. Chapter 43

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we check in on Spectre, Vader is plotting, Gilad Pellaeon uncovers some uncomfortable truths about the Empire, and Aphra cracks a code.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for genocide, racism against Twi'leks, and sexual slavery (all in the section from Pellaeon's POV). 
> 
> One comment mentioned that Vader seems to have forgotten about Leia. That's not entirely the case, but since it's not mentioned in his POV for a few more chapters I thought I should just let you all know.

**1 ABY - VCX-100 _Ghost_ , Quermia, Nilgaard Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

The raucous roar of the riots could just be heard from _Ghost’s_ ramp, coming from outside the walls of the hanger bay. Hera covered the door they had just come through with her blaster. In the chaos she was sure that no-one had noticed them slipping away, but it never hurt to be cautious. Zeb was the last one into the hold, and she hit the controls to send the ramp hissing closed behind them.

“Think I saw some of the stormies taking their helmets off and joining in,” Zeb said in disbelief, shaking his head and holstering his bo-rifle. “Surprised anyone let ‘em.”

Hera shrugged. She didn’t really care. What mattered was the success of their mission here, and they’d achieved that. They were meant to stick around long enough to see how it all shook out and to negotiate on behalf of the Alliance with whichever local leader came out on top at the end. 

“The people here have been watching the same footage we have,” Sabine said. “I suppose they’re sympathetic.” She was referring to the executions that had been broadcast live across the system. Imperials who had declared themselves for Vader - unfortunately for them, there hadn’t been enough of them to come out on top. Most of them had been stormtroopers rather than officers anyway. Lack of organisation had been their downfall, and the Palpatine loyalists had wanted to send a message. The real result of it had just been to weaken themselves with in-fighting. They hadn’t spared a thought for the civilian populace - and the seeds of rebellion had already been planted here.

The Rebel Alliance had used the situation to their advantage. Spectre had struck at the vulnerabilities of the military garrison and stirred up the riots which even now were embroiling the capital in turmoil. 

They had already managed to secure the entirety of the Mon Calamari Sector, and spread out from there to reclaim Lothal, Garel, and a number of other systems in Dominus and Pakuuni Sectors. Quermia was an obvious next target. It lay at the intersection of hyperspace lanes; the Overic Griplink that connected it eventually to Dac itself, and the Perlimian Trade Route to Coreward. Bringing it into the fold was simple strategic sense. 

“We can’t take off until the riots settle down,” Hera told the others. “You should take the opportunity to write up your reports to General Rieekan.” She didn’t miss the looks Sabine and Zeb exchanged. She knew she had changed since they’d seen Ezra again on _Executor_. It wasn’t by choice. She knew it wasn’t healthy either. She could feel it just beneath the surface; a great, horrible, heaving sea of emotion that threatened to break through whenever she allowed herself even a small moment of weakness. The only defence against it was to shut down. To push it ever deeper. If she let it through… she would be no use to anyone. 

If she came off as cold, at least she was still functioning. 

Hera made her way up to the cockpit, and sat down in the pilot’s chair. She stared blankly out of the viewport in front of her. She ought to be following her own advice, but the moment she had stopped moving all of the energy had drained from her limbs. Then her attention was caught by a light blinking on the console in front of her. It was the long-range HoloNet receiver. Hera activated it, a little concerned. It could only be someone from the Alliance, and since she wasn’t expecting a call...

She was surprised to see Commander Sato appear in holo form. “Ah, Hera,” he said, giving her a long look. “Is this a good time?”

“It isn’t a bad one,” Hera replied. She sat up a little straighter.

“It’s about your father,” Commander Sato said. A pit formed in Hera’s stomach. Her father… she hadn’t heard from him in years. Not since that mess with the cruiser over Ryloth. 

“What about him?” she asked. 

“He contacted me recently looking for the Alliance’s assistance in throwing the Empire off of Ryloth,” Commander Sato replied. Hera frowned as she thought about this - her first instinct would have been to say that it sounded like a great idea, but… Ryloth had come up recently in High Command’s tactical updates. Specifically, the updates about the activities of Vader’s Empire. She hadn’t been looking out for news about her home planet, but of course the name had jumped out at her - and then she’d tamped that anger down along with all the rest. 

“Let me guess,” she said. “He’s not happy.”

“To put it lightly,” Sato said. “He asked me for your HoloNet frequency - I suspect he hopes you might have some influence with High Command.”

It would be too much to hope for that her father simply wanted to talk to her, to see how she was, to try and rebuild the bridges that past events had burned. The cause always trumped family with Cham Syndulla. Some part of her did want to see him again though. Maybe it was a childish part that thought her father would be able to make everything better again - even though he hadn’t even been able to do that when she was a child. 

That was unfair of her, Hera admitted. The blame for all of that fell on the Empire, not her father. 

“Fine,” she said. “You can pass it along. I’ll talk to him.”

Commander Sato gave her a short smile. “I hope your conversation goes well,” he said, and ended the connection. 

Hera leaned back in her chair again, staring up at the ceiling of the cockpit. Cham wouldn’t waste any time in calling her, she was sure of that. What would she say to him? How would that conversation even go? She accepted the reasons the Alliance had made the choices they had, but she could never argue their side with any kind of passion. Her father would be able to see the moment she opened her mouth that she didn’t really support this détente. 

He would try to convince her to do something about it. Sabotage it, argue against it, leave to join Free Ryloth… But it wasn’t as though any of that would be more fulfilling. It wouldn’t calm the sea of her emotions. It wouldn’t make up for what she had lost. She was already second-guessing what she’d told Commander Sato. Was talking to her father really wise? 

Too late to back out now though.

\----

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis System, Outer Rim Territories**

Admiral Piett’s suggestions had held merit, Darth Vader mused as he reviewed the boundaries of their growing New Empire laid out on the holotable in his quarters. The Ryloth campaign was almost complete, and further small task forces had been sent out to planets within the Arkanis sector to bring them under their banner. Most of those systems had no significant Imperial forces guarding them; the Academy on Arkanis would have been expected to provide them with reinforcements had any problems larger than mere piracy presented themselves. It was important however to make sure the inhabitants of those systems understood their position. To some extent little would change for them. Imperial Law would remain in effect - with a few alterations. 

Chief among them, and the most vital to make sure these planets understood, was that slavery _would_ come to an end. In terms of mere technicality it was already illegal, but although the Empire had been better about enforcing the law than the Republic had been, they focused their energies on humans. It was not enough. He would not stand for it. He no longer bowed to Sidious’ whims or excuses - and he accepted now that they had never been any more than excuses. It would end, or the Masters would die. 

The forces at Vader’s command had only continued to grow. The ships mostly came funneled through Christophsis - and had even included a small fleet commanded by an Admiral Rae Sloane, whom he had apparently interacted with when she was still in training, although he had no particular memory of that event. Infantry forces in contrast trickled in from every world that came under their control. The rough location of the New Empire would not remain a secret for much longer. When that time came the war would start in earnest - but he anticipated it would bring reinforcements as well as the Emperor’s counter-attack. There was no hiding the chaos across the galaxy, or the cracks in the desperately smiling masks of the HoloNet reporters. His message, his call to arms, had been heard. Others were fighting for their cause.

It should be Luke’s name they fought under. But Luke’s existence would have to be broken to the galaxy first, so that they could know him and understand why he was the only possible choice to rule it once peace came again. 

Luke had done so much for _him_ ; far more than he deserved. Every day Vader reaped the benefits of his son’s stubborn insistence on that bacta submersion. He had forgotten what it was like to live without the constant, wracking pain. Even now he was still cautious with his movements, expecting his prosthetics to jarr against his bones and his skin to flare into fiery agony with each twist and stretch. As Kix had told him, for the most part he still had to wear the suit which had been like a second skin these past twenty years, simply because it was the simplest way of maintaining his breathing. But for short stretches - and only in his own quarters, for he barely recognised who he was without the mask - he could take it off. Take everything off. Feel air, see colour… 

He had needed something to wear instead of the suit at those times. There were of course the robes and the cloak which lay over the body-glove itself, but that did not sum up to a complete outfit. Lacking other options, Vader had approached the fabricators who were tasked with repairing, maintaining, and occasionally creating the various uniforms of the Imperial Navy. Once they had recovered from their initial reaction of abject terror enough to comprehend what he was asking of them, he had been asked what, precisely, he had been thinking of. 

Vader had been forced to admit to himself that he did not know. 

It had never been a topic that mattered to him. Even before the suit, the Jedi Order had provided him with his clothing, and before that… he’d received it from his Master. Even Padme had given up on asking for his opinion on what she should wear, after he had been able to say only that she looked beautiful in every single outfit that she owned. In the end he had taken a flimsi that had been lying spare and sketched out something not entirely dissimilar to the garb of a Jedi Knight. He could think of nothing else. 

He did not feel entirely at ease wearing his new clothing, although he could find nothing to criticise in its construction or materials. He was no Jedi. He was Sith; he had sworn to _their_ code and he still meant it. The code said nothing about what _part_ of the Force might be used to achieve its aims however, and after the healing trance it had become easier to find the Light again. The Dark still came at his call of course, although sometimes Vader sensed there was something altered about it. He was used to the Dark’s hunger, but there was an almost desperate edge to it now. Almost afraid. 

He had never come down on one side or other of the Jedi’s debate about the sentience of the Force. Naturally the factions within the Order had always agreed that the Light was a force for good in the universe, hence the doctrine of submerging one’s will to it, but how far the Force was aware of individuals or able to interact with them on a personal level was another matter. He knew where Alkamar stood on the matter, and he had always trusted the Force itself, whether it was the Light or the Dark. At times he certainly felt that the Force had feelings, emotions, but Vader had always wondered if this was just something peculiar to himself and how _he_ sensed the Force. Kenobi had certainly never had the same experiences. He had asked. 

Still Vader had to wonder. Did the Dark Side worry it was losing him? 

If so it had no reason to be concerned. He had no intention of ever giving it up. Even had he not been certain to need the strength it could give him in the inevitable confrontation with Sidious, he knew the Dark. He was comfortable with it. Since it was now clear that it truly _was_ possible to use more than one element of the Force without cutting oneself off from the other, as Alkamar had claimed, then he would be a fool to do otherwise. A weapon should not be discarded. 

Speaking of which… an appropriate target needed to be found for Rear-Admiral Sloane’s fleet. There were a number of possibilities. Tracking spinward along the Triellian Trade Route was the Llanic system at the intersection of the Llanic Spice Run, a world seething with smugglers and pirates, and instrumental to the galactic spice trade. If he was to prove that the New Empire truly was committed to law and order in a way that Sidious had merely paid lip service to, then wiping out that hive of criminal scum would be a good way to start - and from there Sloane’s fleet could make inroads into consolidating the surrounding sectors. There were plenty of planets rimward of Llanic that could barely be said to be part of the Empire at all - much like Tatooine. 

Vader paused. Tatooine. He never thought about the place of his birth more than he had to, and so he had barely taken stock of the fact that it lay a scant distance away from Arkanis. The possibility struck him with the force of a stun bolt. He could take the planet. Kill Jabba Desilijic Tiure as he had wanted to every time his _Master_ forced him to work with the _slug_. Free… everyone. 

Had he not been waiting for this moment since he was a child? The moment when he finally had the power to do what he’d always sworn he would? How could he do anything other than this? 

It would be a foolish waste of resources to send an entire fleet to take one backwater world, but… it would only be the beginning. The Hutt Clans might not be fond of Jabba but an attack on one of them was an attack on all. They would send a fleet of their own well trained and well paid mercenaries - and it would require more than one ship to beat them back.

He should not - it does not make tactical sense to do this when there is already a powerful enemy to be faced. Yet the Hutts have been a stain on this galaxy for long enough - and Vader is no longer beholden to any but his son. He will at least do the formality of asking, but he cannot imagine Luke refusing him in this.

\----

**1 ABY - Ryloth, Gaulus Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

There had been no real need for Gilad Pellaeon to come down to the planet’s surface in person, but he felt he owed it to Ryloth somehow. As predicted, the battle between his fleet and the system defences had ended decisively in their favour, but there had been a substantial garrison holding the planet - more to safeguard the spice mines, watch over the prisoners-of-war, and fight domestic terrorists than because of any fear of external attack, admittedly - and clearing them out had taken more time. Many of the stormtroopers had been willing to join Pellaeon’s forces once they understood that Vader had sent them, but there had been defections back after it then became clear that official policy was rather less harsh on alien races than it had once been. 

Well, it was over now. There was no Imperial resistance left. Pellaeon was aware of the local group known as Free Ryloth, and he knew that they would be no more likely to accept being a part of Vader’s Empire than they had been Palpatine’s, but for the moment he was determined not to worry about them. He hoped that once they saw how different things would be for the Twi’lek people… That might be over-optimistic, he knew. These people were, after all, terrorists. Yet if the New Empire could be a force for positive change then perhaps they could stop them recruiting anyone else to their cause. 

Speaking of recruitment, he had a new planetary governor to find. The last one had shot himself when he’d seen that he was losing. For the best really; it was difficult to decide what to do with the prisoners they did have. Even the brigs of a Star Destroyer were not endless. 

Pellaeon was of half a mind to appoint one of the locals to the position - if they could be relied upon to stay loyal, of course. It would be difficult to imagine a Twi’lek betraying them to the Emperor though, given everything that Imperial policies had done to them over the years. No, if anything it would be betrayal to Free Ryloth and its presumed leader, Cham Syndulla. That _would_ serve to bring that group out of hiding however, so it would still be worth it. 

If those under his command wanted some kind of precedence for the decision, Pellaeon supposed he could cite Ryloth’s Senator - now ex-Senator - Orn Free Taa, though knowing of that man’s reputation if not ever having met him, Gilad couldn’t exactly call that a good example. Taa was the epitome of the Senate’s vices old and new. He was corrupt, venal, self-serving… and since the dissolution of the Senate, currently unemployed. He suppressed a shudder. If Taa put himself forward for the job, Pellaeon had a mind to throw _him_ in the brig as well. A role-model for the Twi-lek people he was not.

Pellaeon was jerked out of his thoughts by the change in pitch of the shuttle’s engines. Moments later the pilot’s voice came over the internal comms. “We’re here sir,” she said. 

“Very well,” Pellaeon replied. He waited until the shuttle had settled down onto solid ground before unstrapping himself and standing. The squad of stormtroopers sharing the shuttle with him - his bodyguard - followed his lead. The landing ramp hissed open and let in the hot wind of Ryloth’s desert. Pellaeon exited and then simply stood there for a moment, taking in the view. They were almost within the mountains here, and the sharp-edged peaks stabbed up into the sky almost all around him. It was a starkly beautiful sight. Much less so was what greeted him when he dropped his gaze to ground level. 

The shuttle had set down on top of a landing pad at the top of one of the standard, template-constructed garrison buildings that could be found the Empire over. To Pellaeon’s left, the entrance to the spice-mine was hidden behind mounds of scree, but the work-camp spread over the valley floor below them in a sea of tents and flimsy, ramshackle buildings. Tall duracrete walls encircled the camp, topped with barbed wire and searchlights. Twi’lek faces peered cautiously out of their dwellings but there was no-one on the streets, if the winding dirt pathways could really be given that name. 

At this time of day the prisoners would usually be working, but Pellaeon had ordered all of the mines shut down until a full investigation of the prisoners and their alleged crimes had taken place. It was a job that would take weeks, and which he would be delegating to a task-force made up of his own crew. He could take on troops from Ryloth in exchange - the point was to try and avoid bias, as much as that was possible. For his own part, he had wanted to see for himself exactly what these work-camps were like. He was aware of rumours, but there was never any proof. The occasional stab at an exposé the rare - and technically illegal - independent HoloNet channels ran never seemed to amount to much. 

“Let’s get this over with then,” he said, mostly to himself. He did not have great hopes for what he was likely to find - already a faint thread of nausea was winding its way through his guts. 

Inside the garrison building the camp’s administrator was waiting for them in an office strewn with datapads. Pellaeon eyed the mess disapprovingly. He despised sloppiness in general - in filing was no different. Sloppiness led to mistakes - or to things which could be excused as mistakes. The administrator snapped to her feet as he entered and saluted. 

“Admiral, I… No-one told me you had arrived.”

“It seems your guards are more devoted to watching the Twi’leks than watching the skies for approaching shuttles,” Pellaeon said. He could see the edge of panic in her eyes, a reaction to his chilly tone, but she mastered herself. 

“Please take a seat sir,” she said. “How can I help?”

Gilad sat. The chair creaked. It had clearly seen better days. The black synthleather was cracked and worn in many places. “I wish to review a list of the prisoners you have here.”

The administrator blinked. Pellaeon realised he didn’t actually know her name, and if her desk had a nameplate, it was buried under the mess. “Yes,” she said. “I can do that.” She began to rummage around, and eventually had assembled a small pile of datapads which she placed carefully in front of him. He picked one up and began paging through its files. 

“How are these arranged?” he asked.

“These three datapads are each one of the work shifts,” she told him, pointing them out. “This one is the deceased.”

Pellaeon blinked. “Do many prisoners die here?” 

The administrator shrugged. “These people don’t know the value of hard work,” she said. “Sometimes they get lazy and don’t take as much care in the mines as they ought. Accidents happen.”

Accidents _did_ happen, and even with the best efforts of modern technology mining was not a completely safe job anywhere in the galaxy. Yet… he supposed he would just have to see how many names were on that fourth datapad. Even in reviewing the first one however - and he was not yet opening any files to see the kind of crimes that had landed these Twi’leks here - he had noted something odd.

“Administrator, I thought this mine was supposed to have both male and female prisoners,” he said. “Is there another camp elsewhere that they’ve been transferred to?”

“Something like that.” The administrator looked momentarily awkward. “That protocol doesn’t take into account the basics of Twi’lek biology! We couldn’t keep the males and females together or we’d never get anything done!”

“And what do you mean by that?” Pellaeon asked, frowning. He had to admit he did not know very much about Twi’leks as a species. He had met plenty of them over the years - hard to avoid doing so on Corellia or Coruscant, where he had spent much of his younger years - but he had never had any interest in the sciences outside of what physics was required to pilot a Star Destroyer. He’d never had any reason to wonder about biology.

“Do you really not… well,” she looked surprised. “The simple fact of it is that Twi’lek females have a very high sex drive…”

Pellaeon scoffed. “I find that a little hard to believe.” He had known Twi’lek women, and he rather thought he’d have noticed if they’d constantly been taking time out of their busy day to go off and have a little private time with their partners - or with themselves. 

The administrator gave him a look which said very clearly that while she didn’t want to contradict a superior officer, _she_ was the one who had been working on Ryloth for years. “Well they have been separated,” was all she said. “In the interests of efficiency.”

“Where are they then?” Pellaeon asked. “Do they work a separate mine?”

“No, they’ve been set to tasks which more suit their nature,” she replied. Pellaeon frowned. 

“Just come out with it,” he said irritably. “Or do you _mean_ to act as though you have something to hide.”

“No sir!” The administrator flushed. “To speak plainly, it was the idea of the planet’s now-deceased governor to at least turn the situation to our troops’ benefit - you’re a military man Admiral, surely the idea of a brothel can’t be an unfamiliar one to you.”

It took him a moment to really understand what she was saying. The nausea which had been haunting his belly curdled into disgust - a horrible pit of knowledge and anger. How long had this been going on? He was aware that his hands had curled into fists against his thighs - he was sure his knuckles would be white underneath his gloves. “Brothels,” he said quietly. “Is that what you call it?”

The administrator looked at him blankly. 

“And this has been the policy for all of Ryloth?”

“For all the female prisoners, yes,” she replied. “Although as you can imagine with the number of soldiers we actually have on planet, it would simply be impractical to keep them all on Ryloth. I believe Governor Tarn made some arrangements with his colleagues in other Outer Rim Systems to transfer them in return for other prisoners-of-war, so that we still had enough to work the mines and reach our targets.” 

Whatever unpleasant things Gilad had thought he might find, he had not suspected _this_. This was the Empire! They were civilised people, not… not slavers no better than Hutts! He was sorry Tarn had shot himself, because right now he would like nothing more than to kill the bastard with his own hands. Had they really justified it to themselves here with this nonsense about _biology_? 

Suddenly he could no longer stand to sit here and look at the administrator, with her expression of complete bafflement that he might find anything the least bit wrong with what she’d just told him. “You have their datapads too don’t you?” he said brusquely. 

“Yes,” she said, scrabbling around in the mess hastily. She slid another pile of datapads over to him and Pellaeon grabbed them and tucked them under his arm, standing abruptly. 

“I will review these,” he said, trying to keep the part of him that wanted to scream at her under control. He would find out everything, all the sordid little details, and then he would charge everyone responsible in a military court of law. The way things _should_ be done. “I won’t take up any more of your time at present.” No, he would do _that_ when he had her thrown in jail. 

“My time is yours to command Admiral,” the woman replied, but he wasn’t listening. Pellaeon swept out of the office and headed for the shuttle as fast as he could walk without it turning into a run. 

Brothels… yes, of course there were plenty of them out there on near every planet you could think of. But they were damn well regulated - had been under the Republic and Empire both. He knew how they worked - he’d been called to drag his officers out of them often enough over the years. The workers had rights, reasonable pay, even in the Outer Rim if one didn’t count those worlds where slavery and Hutt influence hadn’t yet been stamped out… or so he had thought. Now he was questioning everything. 

He’d thought he would have to dig to find evidence of misconduct. Not that it would be right out in the open, that it was _official policy_. 

Thank the Force for Darth Vader! If he hadn’t made the galaxy aware that the Empire was falling into this kind of corruption… If he hadn’t made the decision to stop it… Pellaeon had never felt less proud of the Imperial service he had sworn his life to. Thank the Force that he’d been given the power to do something about it.

\----

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

Aphra might have dismissed this slicing job initially as basically a bit beneath her, but now that she was really getting her teeth into it she had quickly realised that she was having fun. It had been a while since she’d had a real challenge, and Lord Vader’s medical records certainly were that. The Empire had spent a lot of time, energy, and probably money, on making sure these records were sealed up tighter than the Imperial Palace. She had tried all of the programs in her own personal datapad of slicing nastiness to absolutely no effect, which meant she was having to write something from scratch. 

Part of her wondered if she was really up to the task, but she quelled that quickly. She was Doctor Aphra! Archaeologist extraordinaire! She had never met a security system she couldn’t slice, and she’d been all over the galaxy at one time or another. She wasn’t going to let something the Empire had built get the better of her. 

She had been assembling a slicing program based on all the parts of her previous ones that had showed some kind of effect, and refining it from there. She had the benefit of time. However strong a system might be, it was never completely flawless. There was a way around everything, it just took persistence to find it. 

Aphra finished typing the last line of her updated code and booted it up quickly to check for bugs. It seemed to be working. Now to try it out. She was sure she was getting closer. Unspooling a length of cable she plugged her ‘pad into the computer bank which linked in with the medical records system and sat back to wait. She was getting pretty hungry actually, she realised. If she’d still been on board _Ark Angel_ , she might have risked making Triple-Zero get her something from the kitchen - she figured the droid disliked her enough beneath its programming that one more or less petty request wasn’t going to make much of a difference. Triple-Zero was still on board the Imperial Shuttle she’d been driving around though, along with BeeTee. After the trouble they’d caused on Vjun, Lord Vader had said they needed to stay shut down until he had a use for them again. 

Which was fair enough. 

Aphra wandered around the medbay until she found the clone named Kix, and badgered him into showing her where she could get some food. She avoided any of the other clones around. She supposed they were still here because they had rehab or something like that, since it had been long enough for any injuries to be treated. She was nosy - she had managed to find out what the whole HoloNet station mess had been about. Biochips. Meat programming. Even despite knowing that though, she wasn’t sure if she had forgiven them for turning on Lord Vader, even if, technically, it wasn’t really their fault. She wasn’t thinking about this right now though.

The nearby canteen had a box full of dried noodles in individual packaging. She opened one and rehydrated it with water from the instant heater. Further rummaging around in cupboards turned up a tube of nutrient paste and some flavouring packets. She was used to spacer fare, and this was decent enough. 

By the time she got back to the haphazard workstation she’d set up, her program had finished running. She lifted the datapad, wondering how far _this_ iteration had managed to get - and then nearly dropped it in her surprise. The records lay open in front of her. It had actually worked! Aphra paged through the files, grinning. They flickered over the surface of the ‘pad faster than she could read - but she could see the pictures as they flashed past. Some of them were medical scans that she could barely even read, but others… 

Aphra put her noodles down. Suddenly she wasn’t very hungry. 

She had always been too curious for her own good. It was something that had played to her advantage during her galactic career of crime, but she knew herself well enough to know that it also led her to look for answers to questions she shouldn’t be asking. This was private information, and neither Lord Vader or his son would thank her for poking her nose deeper once her job of cracking it open for them was done. Still… still... some part of her just had to know. 

She ought to have listened to the part of her that knew better.


	44. Chapter 44

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which further secrets are uncovered, Hera has a chance to speak to her father, a _Lost Stars_ character makes an appearance, and Aphra has to deal with what she now knows.

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim**

The files Leia had found were fascinating. Some of it was stuff Luke knew already from talking with Alkamar, but a lot of it was entirely new and he suspected that was because it had been written for people who were native to the Arkanii culture. That was why it spoke about things in ways that sounded so alien, and assumed a kind of background knowledge of terms and ideas that he simply didn’t have. Alkamar had been trying to give him some of that background, but of course it wasn’t as easy as it would have been if he’d grown up with it. 

Much of that background had been about the Force. Luke had certainly come to accept the idea that the Force was more than just the Light Side and the Dark Side, and even that what he thought of as the ‘Light’ probably wasn’t actually the same as what the Jedi of old would have used. Alkamar had told him him about the two Paths her people used, the paths of the Suns and the Moons, but the Arkanii had been scholars as well. They had studied a lot of Force traditions from all over the galaxy, things Luke had never heard of - and that was where this idea of ‘aspects’ came in. 

Actually finding any of these other ‘aspects’ within the Force was a different matter. As Alkamar had explained it, it wasn’t simply a matter of having an academic knowledge of what these aspects symbolised, or what they held within them - even that was a concept that he had some trouble with - and then trying to find that in the Force. It was about having a kind of instinct for it based on what those concepts were to you. 

It was like when Luke thought of ‘Light’ he thought of Tatooine’s suns, and everything which they _meant_ where he’d grown up. A force of destruction, something that could kill or slap someone down to the ground in an enforced pacification, but also an agent of cleansing and purifying - the way farmers would put out food to dry into jerky or preserved fruit and vegetables, or their clothes to be bleached after washing. And that was all without getting into their mythological role as the Eggs of the Dragon. It was almost impossible for him to think of Light and think, ‘life-giver’, or ‘comfort’. 

Which was why he was so sure his Light Side wasn’t the same as Old Ben’s. He hadn’t spoken to his father about that yet, only Alkamar. He wasn’t sure if Vader had noticed a difference, but if it had really been twenty years since he’d last touched the Light was that really so surprising…?

Alkamar had mentioned that her ‘Path of the Moons’ had been categorised by their scholars in their overarching system as the Aspect of Dark, but had also been very clear that this was by no means the same Dark as the Sith used. She hadn’t told him the Arkanii called that the Aspect of Poison instead, but it made sense, particularly given the story she had told him, oh, months ago now on Vjun. ‘Dark’ on Tatooine was cool, calm, peaceful, protective… completely the opposite of what the Sith stood for. 

“They certainly made a thorough study of the Sith,” Leia remarked, looking up from her datapad. “Lucky for us.”

“This is… amazing,” Ezra said, his eyes wide. “I’ve never heard of half of these abilities… this is talking about the secret knowledge of the Sith Lords! How did they even find out half of this?”

“A good question,” Leia replied, glancing at Luke. Luke sighed, unable to stop himself rolling his eyes a little bit. 

“Do you still really think they’re evil?” he asked his sister. She smirked at him.

“Not entirely,” she replied. “But you have to admit it’s a little suspicious how knowledgeable they seem to be. From what Ezra says, no-one outside of the line of these ‘Rule of Two’ Sith is meant to know their secrets. _He_ certainly didn’t.”

“I’m sure the Jedi used to know a lot about the Sith as well,” Luke objected. “There must be Sith holocrons, old Sith documents… They must have temples; all the other Force traditions seem to. Nothing stays secret forever. Besides with how old these datapads are it sounds like they might even be from before the whole Rule of Two thing. It is talking about a Sith Empire - and I know, even though the Empire we’ve got right now technically _is_ a Sith Empire, that isn’t something the Emperor makes public.”

“No, that’s fair enough,” Leia admitted. “I’m not going to trust anything easily though - that’s the sort of thing that gets you killed. It does help to read about them in their own words.”

Those words were certainly interesting ones. The Arkanii document didn’t hold back in describing what they knew of what the Sith could do, and it was honest enough about what they did _not_ know as well. It seemed to divide the abilities of the Sith into two areas; Sith magic, and Sith alchemy. The former appeared to have something to do with strengthening, intensifying and amplifying the Dark Side around its wielder, which prevented other aspects of the Force being used to their full extent and gave even greater abilities to the Sith themselves - at some cost if they then didn’t have the ability to control what they had unleashed. The latter, this ‘alchemy’, sounded like it was all about manipulating and changing physical objects, even animals and people. Luke felt sure _that_ was what they ought to be looking at. 

The file was long though, and the translation software had made heavy going of it. Luke was certain that some of the terms hadn’t been translated properly, because they just didn’t make sense in context. He didn’t want to read too much into something and then find out later that they had gotten the wrong end of the stick entirely. It didn’t help that there seemed to be some overlap between Sith magic and alchemy in terms of what they allowed the Sith to do, and that the document never seemed to mention exactly _how_ the Sith could do these things, only that they could. 

The current passage he was reading was talking about using the Dark Side for healing, which had at first seemed reasonable enough to Luke before he got to the part about how it was _‘commanding against the nature and inclination of the body, resulting in great pain, rather than encouraging those natural mechanisms which time itself would allow’_. He had been wondering to himself if this was just one more thing Sidious had held from his father, but then the thought occurred to him that perhaps he had been using it on him instead. Given how poor Vader’s medical treatment had been, Kix had wondered aloud a few times how he was even still alive. Was this part of the answer, aside from his father’s sheer stubbornness? 

So far he hadn’t found anything about putting your mind into another person’s body, but Luke hoped it was only a matter of time. He did fear though that even if they did find a description of the ability they knew Sidious had to have, the Arkanii wouldn’t know anything about how to stop it. If that was the case, then he had no idea where they would look next. 

“This sounds interesting,” Ezra said aloud. “It’s talking about communicating over long distances using the Force - and I mean across _lightyears_ of space.”

Leia frowned. “How is that possible? How could anyone possibly sense another person over such a massive distance? Besides, wouldn’t there be stories of the Jedi Order doing that during the Clone Wars - if there are _I’ve_ never heard any.”

Ezra scrolled down and an uneasy expression came over his face. “Apparently one of the people involved has to… put some part of themselves, I think, inside the mind of the other. Then it’s there, this link, forever until that same person takes it out again. It sounds a little uh… invasive.”

“And why would you care about a little problem like that, _Inquisitor?_ ” Leia asked him. 

“Look, my mind is _me_ , alright,” Ezra said defensively. “It’s one thing for Lord Vader or someone to be able to take a look inside from time to time when they _need_ to, but if they were in there _all the time,_ knowing every single thought and feeling… I just…” He stopped, seemingly unable to articulate all of what he was feeling about the subject. 

“It’s only natural to want to be your own person,” Luke reassured him. He knew Ezra had started to come to terms with all the lies the Inquisitorius had told him over the years, and that he was no longer on their side, but it was one thing to have made that decision and another to simply shrug off all of that brainwashing. It _was_ brainwashing, whatever Ezra personally thought of it. 

“Still…” Ezra said hesitantly. “Just think of how helpful something like this would be for the war effort. We can’t trust the HoloNet and we haven’t had time to set up a system like the one the Rebel Alliance uses. It’s not too big a problem yet but as your new Empire…”

“Don’t call it _my_ Empire,” Luke cut in.

“ _The_ new Empire,” Ezra corrected, “starts to expand…” 

“So you want to stick Darth Vader inside the heads of… who exactly?” Leia asked. “The Fleet Captains? And would you even tell them what they were getting themselves into?”

Ezra bristled. “I’m not saying we should do anything against anyone’s will! But if they were agreeable…”

“Like you were so agreeable just now?”

“We’re not going to be doing something like that,” Luke said. He could see Ezra’s point about their communications situation, but given that this was a technique being talked about in a catalogue of Sith abilities, there was no way it would be right to use it. On the other hand, there might be some _other_ way to communicate long distances using the Force, now that they knew the general idea was possible. “Not with the Dark Side anyway.”

“It was just an idea,” Ezra said, mostly under his breath, as he went back to reading through the file on his ‘pad. Luke did the same. He scrolled through the next few sections until he reached the bit that Ezra had been talking about. No, it didn’t sound pleasant at all. It wasn’t a subject that helped them with what they were currently looking for anyway. 

His first clue to _that_ subject came a little bit later, when the phrase _‘transfer of the essence’_ suddenly jumped out at him. Luke stopped, and re-read over the passage more carefully. 

_“It has been the habit of the more adept or knowledgeable Sith over the years to find ways to preserve themselves against the death of their bodily forms. Some methods are common to other paths and other Aspects of the Force, for example the construction of holocrons. Others are less well understood. There are records of Sith spirits, which may be some variation on the transcendence of form, as well as evidence of Sith imbuing other physical objects with their life-force via full transfer of the essence rather than simply that of knowledge. A particularly unethical form of this ability is for the Sith to overwhelm the life-force of another sentient being, resulting in forcibly ejecting them from their physical body or indeed extinguishing and consuming them entirely. This leaves the body free for the Sith to inhabit as they would have their original. There is some evidence that some Sith Lords have extended their existence on the physical plane for hundreds of years in this fashion.”_

Luke looked up; Leia was watching him. “You reached that passage as well then,” he said. She nodded. 

“It still doesn’t tell us how they do it though,” he said. “Or how to stop it.” Which was what he had feared. 

“I’d think that secret was one the Lords of the Sith would try particularly hard to keep,” Ezra said. “At least we know now that it really does exist. Even if the Arkanii could describe how to counter it, that’s a long way from learning it in real life though. If you could learn Force techniques from books everything would be a lot simpler but…”

“You told me that before,” Luke said, remembering. It had been on Vrogas Vas. “You told me a holocron wouldn’t be enough, that I had to learn from a real person. But I think I’ve been doing pretty well so far learning from Alkamar.”

“Yes, but you’ve had your father as well haven’t you,” Ezra pointed out, which was only a little bit true. Luke hadn’t had any lessons from Vader. It was mostly just figuring things out himself from what Alkamar had told him. He didn’t get a chance to point that out though. Leia spoke first. 

“Right now we don’t have a holocron _or_ a person,” she said. “We just have this.” She tapped the side of the datapad. “Which apparently is not as much use as we’d hoped.”

“We haven’t finished it yet,” Luke pointed out, wanting to keep everyone’s hopes up. “Otherwise… who knows. I guess we might have to go searching for Sith knowledge ourselves.”

\----

**1 ABY - Lianna, Allied Tion Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

Hera didn’t hear from her father right away, which worried her. She would have expected, after going to the trouble of actually _asking_ for her HoloNet frequency, that he wouldn’t have wasted any time in getting in touch. She wondered what might have happened to hold him up. Commander Sato had told her that Ryloth was part of Vader’s New Empire now, and she knew her father wouldn’t stand for that. He might have… done something. Just because he had lasted this long as the leader of Free Ryloth didn’t mean all that much. He was as vulnerable to random chance and bad luck as any of them. That was simply the nature of rebellion. Any of them could die at any time. 

She and Spectre had moved on from the Quermia mission by the time Cham actually did contact her. Their newest task was sabotage, which all of them were well-practised at by this point. She had landed _Ghost_ in one of the less savoury districts of Lianna, a planet that wasn’t within the bounds of Alliance territory - at least not yet. Like Coruscant, it was a city-world, but not quite as thriving or developed. It was however a major manufacturing centre, and - the part which was relevant to _their_ interests - a contractor for Sienar Systems. It had been churning out TIE fighters long before the factory on Lothal was ever built, but the loss of Lothal and other Outer Rim planets had only forced more of that business to come Lianna’s way. 

With a war on and TIEs being destroyed all across the galaxy, the Empire couldn’t be more eager to increase their numbers again - although finding pilots qualified enough to fly them was bound to be a different matter. Sienar hadn’t declared for either side yet so far as anyone could make out, but they were continuing to fulfil the orders that had already been placed with them. Shutting down their factories here could only hurt the Emperor. 

The operation was still in its planning stages when Hera’s comm beeped at her. It was the tone she had set up for important calls - she didn’t waste any time in answering it. The image took longer to resolve itself than normal, but she was already sure who it was even before it came into focus. 

“Father,” she said cautiously. 

“Hera. It’s good to see you.” He sounded sincere on that front - which was rich considering how they’d parted. She studied him. He looked a bit the worse for wear. 

“How are things on Ryloth?” she asked him, her mind returning to that question which had been plaguing her. 

Cham frowned. “Not entirely as I expected,” he said. “Vader’s army was successful in defeating the garrison here, but they have been slower about leaving than I would have liked. Free Ryloth has been monitoring their activities. They are led by a man named Gilad Pellaeon.” 

Hera didn’t ask how he knew. Her father had many sources; some Imperial officers cared more about money than their uniform and often didn’t realise they were passing information to Free Ryloth until they were in far too deep to back out. She was sure they’d have been glad of the excuse to defect to the winning side of their civil war and become moles in Vader’s forces. 

“We have checked him out. A few months ago he was no more than the First Officer of a Star Destroyer called _Chimera_ \- now he’s wearing the bars of a Rear-Admiral.” He sneered. Hera was no more impressed than her father was. No wonder some Imps were flocking to Vader when there was that kind of prize to be won. “I have been trying to get one of our people close enough to him to kill him when we need to, but he removed all of the slaves - or _servants_ as these Imps like to pretend are all they are - from the house.”

He was talking about _their_ house. It had been theirs, before the Separatists, before the Empire. There was a reason her father had led the insurgency even back then. The Separatists had ignored the place, and the Empire had paid Orn Free Taa lip-service by basing their ‘government’ out of the Senator’s estates. It was only recently since the dissolution of the Senate that they had moved it to the Syndulla house. Hera might not have been receiving news from her father directly, but she had been paying attention for the least bit of intelligence about Ryloth that came their way.

“I hate to imagine what they’ve done to our home,” she said. “Did… anything survive?”

“It was boarded up for years before they took it,” Cham said. He had always been practised at hiding his emotions but she was his daughter. She could see how much it hurt him. “It was always too dangerous to go back. During the Clone Wars I had promised myself there would be time after the war was finished… no Hera. The Empire has everything - if they haven’t burnt it already.”

Hera wanted to cry herself, but she wasn’t going to give in to that. In truth, she barely remembered their old home. They had left when she was very young, and most of her childhood memories were not of there but of the expansive cave systems of Ryloth where the resistance had been based and where they had hidden the children and those too old or injured to fight. 

“What else has this man Pellaeon done?” she asked. 

“Something curious,” Cham replied. “He has halted operations at the slave-camps.”

Hera sat bolt upright. “Surely… surely that’s a good thing!” she said, shocked. 

Her father frowned. “I cannot trust it,” he said. “It seems good, but what if this is just the precursor to something worse. I was wrong when I thought the Republic would be better than the Separatists - I will not make the same mistake with Vader.”

“What are you planning?” Hera asked.

“Just what I told your Alliance friend, Commander Sato. I intend to throw the Empire off our planet. We are still learning the weaknesses of these newest occupiers, and it is my hope that our silence has made them complacent. The time will come when Free Ryloth is ready to strike. I had hoped we might receive some support from the Rebel Alliance at that time…”

“I might be closer to the inner circle but I don’t have that power,” Hera said. “I’m sorry father.”

She meant that. She wanted not just Ryloth, but every planet free of the Empire, and that included Vader’s. She didn’t _want_ to wait until after Vader and the Emperor settled their civil war. She could still do more good as part of the Alliance as not though, so she was bound by what they had agreed. 

“We have managed this long,” Cham said. “We will continue to do so.” He hesitated. “Hera… it has been so many years since we last spoke. I want to… make amends. I want to hear everything that has happened to you. Are you still running around with that human… what was his name? Kanan?”

Hera couldn’t hold it. The tide of emotion swelled, and broke. She hunched forwards as she sobbed, hiding her face in her hands. Through the tears and the rushing of white noise in her head like a starship’s engines powering up for flight she could just about hear her father’s panicked voice calling her name. 

“He’s… he’s dead daddy,” she said, forcing the words out, feeling like a child again. She wanted so much to feel her father’s arms around her, as though he could make everything all right even though she knew that was just a foolish fantasy. The words came streaming out of her in a litany of everything she had gone through, everything that had torn her heart apart. 

There was no-one she could have opened herself up to like this except her father - and she hadn’t known until now how much she needed to get it out. When she finally stopped she felt wrung dry. Emptied out. But… it was still somehow better than she had felt in a long time.

\----

**1 ABY - Oulanne, Oulanne system, Inner Rim**

Thane Kyrell had seen the broadcast. Everyone had. He had been in a bar at the time taking part in a quiet celebration with the rest of the crew of _Mighty Oak Apocalypse_ \- or _Moa_ as they called her for the sake of brevity. They had just finished emptying out the ship’s holds and distributing the aid they’d brought to the refugees of the recent earthquake. That act had earned them enough gratitude from the locals that they had been drinking for free, and after leaving the Empire Thane wasn’t about to turn down any kind of alcohol whether it was free or otherwise. He had been discussing where they might go from here with Lohgarra, _Moa’s_ Wookie Captain, when the pod-race that had been on in the background had suddenly fizzled out to be replaced by the rotating Imperial Cog that meant an emergency announcement. 

Everything that had come afterwards still seemed to be burned into his memories. It had been that world-changing.

_Thane looked up, and stared into the almost mesmerising depths of the Imperial sigil._

_Those who had been watching the race complained - loudly - and that got the attention of everyone else. The barkeep slapped the HoloNet receiver a few times, and Thane realised that they didn’t understand what this was. What it meant. It had been one of the things they’d covered in the Academy, but he hadn’t known it wasn’t common knowledge for civilians. They probably didn’t even think an emergency override for the HoloNet was possible._

_The cog didn’t stay on the screen long. It was quickly replaced by the inside of a news studio and - making everything else rapidly fade into the background - the face, or rather_ mask, _of Darth kriffing Vader himself._

 _Thane swallowed hard. He had no idea what might have happened that would justify activating an emergency broadcast, and even less so what catastrophic thing it might be that had_ Darth Vader _announcing it to them. Wild and ridiculous ideas flashed rapidly through his mind; the Emperor was dead, the Rebellion had been wiped out in one fell swoop; the Empire had built another superweapon…_

_Then Vader began to speak. “People of the Galaxy. Citizens of the Empire. You have been deceived. The man who calls himself your Emperor has lied to you, as he has lied to me and countless others…”_

_Thane listened, aware that his mouth was hanging open a little. Even his most outlandish idea hadn’t matched_ this. _The ‘harsh measures’ Vader was talking about… he had to mean Alderaan, didn’t he. That and all the other terrible things Thane had seen, the things that had made him desert the Imperial Navy in the first place. The slavery, the oppression… And Vader was admitting to it? Was saying that no, this wasn’t the way things were meant to be?_ Vader. 

_“Duty to the Empire now calls for a change,” Vader was saying. “One I intend to see through to the end. The Emperor will be removed from power so that one more suited to the task can take his place. This is now a war. Choose your side with care.”_

_And then the broadcast was over. The spinning Imperial Cog remained for a few moments with almost mocking irony, and then the pod-racing channel was back._

_Thane had leaned back in his chair and simply whispered, “What the kriff?” to himself._

It had been a few weeks since then. They hadn’t left Oulanne. It simply wasn’t safe. The Empire was in turmoil, fighting itself, tearing itself apart. There wasn’t much of an Imperial presence on Oulanne itself, since as a loyal Inner Rim planet it wasn’t thought to need any sort of careful watching, which meant they had largely been spared from the conflict. Even if there had been though, there were the aftereffects of the earthquake to consider. The planet was still getting its feet back under it from that - it couldn’t afford to concern itself with the galaxy at large. Given everything, Loghaara had decided _Moa_ would be staying until things calmed down a bit. 

Thane was still trying to come to terms with what this all _meant_. He’d left the Imperial Navy because he had finally been forced to face the truth about the Empire’s cruelty and tyranny. He had wondered sometimes why everyone else couldn’t see it, or if it was simply fear that stopped them from doing _something_ , but he had never for a moment thought his reasoning might be validated by someone as high up in the Imperial hierarchy as Darth Vader. 

What could Vader possibly have to gain from this? It couldn’t be simply because he wanted to do the right thing. Nobody knew exactly when Vader had become a part of the Empire - to Thane, who had been a child when the Republic fell, it had always seemed that he had been there all along. For that to be the case and for him to have kept his place at the Emperor’s side for all those years he would have to be complicit in the worst of everything the Empire had ever done. All the secrets which most of the galaxy didn’t know about - but which Thane was sure existed. The Empire he knew now wasn’t any different from the Empire he had known all along. If the horrors were happening now, then they had probably always been happening, it was just that Imperial propaganda covered it up. 

Was Alderaan really just the last straw for Vader? Or did he know that enough loyal Imperial soldiers had been sickened by what had happened that he would have a power base to draw on when he attempted a coup. Thane’s cynical nature had him suspecting the latter. 

As they always did, his thoughts turned to Ciena. She was no cynic. She had stayed with the Empire when he had run because to do otherwise would be to break her oath. Loyalty was the most important thing to her. So… what would she do now? Thane realised he didn’t know. He knew that Ciena had been as appalled by the destruction of Alderaan as he had, but the deaths of their friends when it too was destroyed in turn had weighed on her almost as much. She hadn’t seen everything that he had, but she was an idealist - or perhaps just call her an optimist. Those felt like the same thing to him. Would she join Vader after hearing him admit that the Empire’s core policies were wrong? Or…

Vader wasn’t really a public figure - the only thing that was really known about him was that quality which COMPNOR was forever taking advantage of, which was _his_ loyalty as well. And yet he had turned against the Emperor, whether his reasons were what he claimed or not. Would that be more important? Would Ciena still prize her honour, or would she see that she could still keep her oath without being a part of something poisonous and corrupt? 

Thane didn’t know how he could find out. The last he knew of it Ciena had been serving aboard _Devastator_ , which had been Vader’s flagship - until the Death Star was destroyed. Afterwards Vader had left - Ciena had told him that much, but she hadn’t known to where. _Devastator_ could be anywhere in the galaxy, and unless there was some kind of mutiny it would be bound to its Captain’s decision. 

He had to consider what _he_ was going to do as well. If Vader was sincere… Thane had joined the Imperial Navy mostly just to get away from his home planet and to have the chance to fly starships. Those hadn’t been the only reasons though. The Academy had claimed he - along with the rest of the cadets - would be making a difference. They would be making the galaxy a better place by ensuring peace and order in the form of the Empire. Even if that had been a lie, maybe this wasn’t. Maybe if he tried to find Vader’s forces he could go back… 

Thane was surprised to find that some part of him wanted that. He had to admit though that even if he left _Moa_ and her crew, he wasn’t even sure where to go. It was common knowledge by now that the broadcast signal had originated in the Christophsis system, but it would be suicidal for one man to go there alone. Right now it was a meatgrinder as Star Destroyers fought each other in bitter, deadly tussles over and over, one side destroying the other until more ships arrived to start the conflict again . The Empire hadn’t been able to track Vader’s signal on from there - if they _had_ it would have been a victory and so it would have been on the HoloNews. 

Nobody knew where Vader was holed up, or if they did they weren’t telling. The decision had been taken out of Thane’s hands - for now. But that wouldn’t always be true.

\----

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis system, Arkanis sector, Outer Rim Territories**

Aphra kept coming back to the files. She read them already, as much as she could understand without any kind of specialist medical knowledge, but… some part of her was still refusing to believe it. The knowledge had ripped something open inside of her, an ugly black hole of emotion that she could categorise. Perhaps… fear. 

How could this be true? How could all of this horror have happened to someone like Vader? Someone untouchable! Vader was… he was powerful, he was strong, he wasn’t the kind of person that things like this happened to! He was in charge, he could protect people, he was _safe_. 

Aphra pulled her legs up in her chair and wrapped her arms around them, burying her head against her knees. She was vaguely aware that she was trembling - but it wasn’t cold in here. 

She was going to have to pass this on to Luke and Kix. Luke was the one who had asked her to slice these files, he would expect results sooner or later. She didn’t want to hand this over. It felt wrong. She didn’t want other people to know. If they didn’t know… if they weren’t aware that this sort of thing was possible… that such terrible things had been done to Vader… 

No, that wouldn’t change anything. Luke had to have some idea - he was Vader’s son. And Kix would have guessed some of it, because he knew about these sorts of things. She should be telling them so they could try and fix things as best they could. They couldn’t take away what she knew though. She couldn’t turn back the clock, _not_ look at the files, keep the image and symbol of Vader inviolable in her head. 

She didn’t feel _safe_.


	45. Chapter 45

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ezra speaks to the Inquisitors, Vader informs Luke of his plans for Tatooine, and Pellaeon has some luck on Ryloth.

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

Ezra knew that he probably shouldn’t be doing this. Luke wouldn’t approve; he had agreed with his sister that they shouldn’t try to make use of the communications ability he had found out about. Ezra understood where they were coming from. He had been uneasy himself at first. But the more he thought about it, the more important it seemed to be to him. Vader needed to be able to command his forces reliably and secretly. Ezra couldn’t see any other way of doing so apart from… this. 

There was more than one brig on board _Executor_. On a ship of this size, why take the risk of keeping all your prisoners in one place when there was space to spare? There hadn’t been any other prisoners in the brig Luke had sent the Inquisitors to, so at this point they more or less had the run of the place provided they stayed within its boundaries. The cell doors stood open, and the only guards were on the outside. It seemed to serve them well enough - not that any of them would have dared to complain about things. 

Ezra had brought the hssiss with him as a kind of moral support. There would be no judging looks from that direction. He knew the other Inquisitors didn’t like him. He was favoured - as far as they were concerned - by a Sith Apprentice. At least, Ezra was pretty sure they were still operating under that misconception. He didn’t think they had spent enough time around Luke to realise any different, and _he_ wasn’t about to correct them. He worried that if the Inquisitors learned that Luke was using his own particular strange brand of the Force they might take it as a sign of weakness. 

That might be giving them too little credit. But… Ezra wasn’t going to take the chance. 

“What are _you_ doing here?” Ninth Brother said, looking up from where he had been tinkering with his lightsaber. He bared teeth which were sharpened to points. 

“I’ve come to talk,” Ezra replied, keeping his spine straight as a rod and his hands folded casually behind his back. He was outnumbered, but they wouldn’t dare do anything to him. He was _almost_ certain of that. “Where are Second Brother and Second Sister?”

“Meditating,” the other Inquisitor said, waving a hand at the corridor which led to brig cells. “ _I’ll_ go,” he added, when Ezra made to move. “And _they’ll_ be making the decision as to if you might have anything worth saying.”

Ezra waited. He kept his shields up, not letting any of his nervousness leak out into the Force. He wasn’t sure if the other Inquisitors would find the idea of having Vader in their heads all the time as offputting as he had. Some might, others might see it as an honour. Or they might not want to help to that extent. Ezra didn’t have any illusions about the nature of their ‘alliance’. They hadn’t stood down from their initial attack out of any particular loyalty, but out of respect for the sacred ritual of the Sith - Master against Apprentice. It was the same with the Inquisitors on Arkanis. All of them were just waiting to see who would win. 

It was different for him. Ezra had never asked any of his colleagues about what they wanted to do with their power, but most of them had known less of the galaxy and the Empire than he had running with the _Ghost’s_ crew. Besides, he had no idea which of them might have known about the lies the Inquisitorius had fed him. He wasn’t even really an Inquisitor anymore. He had forsaken that, as it had forsaken him. In Luke, Ezra had seen something he had been searching for - hope. That the galaxy could be made a better place. But Luke meant something different to the Inquisitors. 

So far they had agreed to offer their assistance on several occasions, but that was something more of a goodwill gesture - or appeasement of the Sith Lord tendency to be wrathful, if you wanted to put it that way. What Ezra would be suggesting was a step above and beyond that - but he felt he had to try anyway. 

It was a while before Ninth Brother came back. An intimidation tactic, that was all it was. Ezra wasn’t going to be put off by such a simple trick. “Fine,” Ninth said. “Come on then.” He led him to the far end of the corridor. The Dark Side felt stronger here - but that was to be expected, if they had been using this room for meditation. The hssiss perked up, their tongues licking out to taste the air. Ezra could sense their satisfaction, although they remained alert. They would protect him if it became necessary. 

Second Brother and Second Sister were both humans and both older than him - but not as much older as he might have expected. He doubted they could be any older than thirty. He had never had cause to think about it before but… that actually made sense. If they’d been older, they would have been Jedi padawans, and they’d have died with the rest of them. 

“You wanted to talk,” Second Sister said, after a moment. Her tone was chilly. “So talk.”

“Did Fourth Sister tell you what was recovered from the hidden temple on Arkanis?” Ezra asked, deciding it would be better to lead with this. They wouldn’t accept something like this without knowing where it was coming from. 

“Information,” Second Sister replied, looking at him with suspicion. “Secrets the Sith Lords were searching for.”

Ezra nodded. “I’ve been… assisting with looking through the documents,” he said, picking his words carefully. “I found something interesting.”

Second Brother’s surge of jealousy was strong enough to seep through his shields - Ezra couldn’t have missed it. He clamped it down quickly though, and it was gone almost as fast as it’d arrived. Perhaps he was consoling himself with the thought that if Vader lost, Ezra would certainly be dead. Let him. Ezra had complete confidence in Luke and Vader. 

“Interesting for whom, I have to wonder,” Second Brother said. 

“It’s a technique for long-range communication,” Ezra said, ignoring that comment. He explained what they’d been able to make out from the Arkanii data, watching their expressions closely. He saw the moment they realised what he was getting at. 

“Want us to prove our loyalty, is that it?” Second Brother began, sneering, but Second Sister held up a hand to stop him. 

“We will think about this,” she said calmly. “You should go now.” 

Ezra nodded. He had done what he could - if they chose to approach Lord Vader on their own account then he would have achieved what he’d hoped for. It was all he could ask. 

\----

Vader was aware of what his son had been working on. Although much of his own time was taken up with the war effort he still kept an eye on Luke through the Force. It did not give him complete knowledge of Luke’s actions, but he was able to feel the shape of his son’s thoughts through their bond and so sense what occupied him at particular moments. He knew that Luke had been searching the Arkanii documents for some method of defeating Sidious, and he knew that he had enlisted the aid of the Twelfth Brother to do so - though more importantly, the aid of his sister. 

Vader was thankful for that. He was well aware that he had been shying away from thinking about Leia Organa. It was… unjust of him, but he simply did not know what to do about his daughter’s presence on board _Executor_. He could not let her go because the moment he considered it his mind conjured all the thousand dangers of the galaxy, and very particularly the dangers posed by the Emperor. Sidious had sent that task force specifically to retrieve her as well as to see to the death of Vader himself. If she was not under the protection of the fleet he would try again the moment he became aware of that fact. 

Leia was not difficult to find with the Force. She had been protected before by some method that Vader did not know of, but that protection seemed to have ended the moment her powers began to grow under the tutelage of his former apprentice. At present her presence was cloaked by being so near to himself and to Luke - and _they_ were only escaping the Emperor’s ability to find them because of the shadow of the Dark Side. Amongst the Rebel Alliance, Leia’s Light-Side brilliance would shine like a beacon. 

He could not allow that. He could not allow even the slightest chance that Sidious might take her and break her will - for Leia would never become his new Apprentice of her own volition. 

Nor could Vader make peace with her. Even the slightest brush of his mind against hers revealed the depths of her hatred for him. It was a hatred only surpassed by her hatred for Tarkin - long dead - and for the Emperor. He had been debating with himself what to do, when he could force himself to face the issue without flinching from the pain of all the many ways he had failed her, when Luke had managed to find the solution for him. 

Luke had the authority to take Leia from her prison. He did not require Vader’s permission to do so - and thus there could be no question in Leia’s mind that this was some plan of Vader’s for whatever malicious purpose she might attribute to him. Luke could spend time with his sister, keep her company, train with her, allow her access to books, entertainment… He could be his sister’s keeper and Vader did not have to raise a hand to do anything about it either way. Luke had not approached him yet - likely fearing that Vader might forbid it continuing, although he had no intention of doing so. He would do so eventually, Vader was sure, and at that point he would likely advocate for Leia’s release… and then Vader would explain all the reasons that could not happen. 

Indeed, Luke had asked to meet him face to face today. The subject of Leia might come up, but the main purpose was to discuss Luke’s findings. It was a constant source of quiet aggravation that he and Luke had not been spending as much time together as they had before, but much of Vader’s time was taken up in managing the war effort. Ideally Luke would have been a part of that also, for although he had begun his military education on Vjun that had lapsed by the wayside since Luke had left the planet - and besides there was still much for him to learn. Yet Luke had not even allowed him the opportunity to raise the subject. In his mind it seemed to be part and parcel of accepting his destiny to rule as Emperor - and thus he would have no part of it. 

Vader was not about to press the matter. Gentle persuasion seemed to work better on his son’s stubbornness than fighting it out. 

And speaking of the boy…

_Father. I’m here._ Luke’s gentle Force presence was waiting outside his quarters. Vader opened the door for him. He had saved the short time he had out of his suit each day for this meeting. Though his eyesight was poor without benefit of the lenses in his helmet, he would much rather look upon his son with his own eyes at every opportunity possible than see him again through that eternal tint of red. 

“Luke,” he said, disliking how weak his voice sounded without the vocoder. “Welcome.”

“I have good news and bad,” Luke said, striding in. He appeared in high spirits, not even waiting to sit before he started speaking. “We found out that this ability of the Emperor’s really does exist, and even that there is a way to stop it… the problem is we can’t find out how.”

Vader considered this. It was indeed a start, and more than they had had before, but as his son said it was far from ideal. “Do you have any further leads?” he asked. 

“Perhaps,” Luke replied. “There are a lot of a datapads to go through - we’re not finished yet. Also they mentioned other Arkanii temples out there. They might have more information if we don’t turn anything up.”

“If that is so, perhaps there is one on Tatooine,” Vader said. This was not something he had considered himself prior to now, but it seemed logical. There were large parts of Tatooine which were uninhabited - or inhabited only by savages. It was entirely possible there were ruins there unknown to most - and he had been in no fit state to notice anything unusual in the Force when he was last there. 

“There might be,” Luke agreed. “And I’d like to at least go back and check. I… left in something of a hurry.” His face fell and pain echoed in the Force. Vader realised he had never asked about the circumstances that had led to his son’s appearance on the Death Star - the first time he had laid eyes on him. He had assumed initially that Kenobi had spirited him off-planet once he felt he was old enough to be handed a lightsaber and made into the weapon of the Jedi’s revenge… but perhaps that was not so. 

“I have not asked about your life on Tatooine,” he said. “Kenobi took you to live with Owen and Beru Lars?”

Luke looked away. “That’s right,” he said quietly. “They were the only family I had… before the Empire killed them.”

Vader made no attempt to hide his surprise. His son had made no mention of this before now, which made little sense. Surely he would have if only to have more ammunition in his arguments against the Empire. “I am sorry,” he said, and meant it. He had not known his step-brother well, but from what little contact they had the man had seemed honest and decent. His newly-wed wife also. 

“It was just… Imperial policy at work,” Luke said, wiping the hint of tears from his eyes. Vader wanted to ease his distress but he was at a loss as to how. 

“That policy at least will change,” he said, settling on that even if it was small comfort. 

“That’s why I’m still _here,_ ” Luke said. “Not just because you’re my father - although that is a big part of it - but because I can actually do some good here.”

“Have you then changed your mind about becoming Emperor?”

“No!” Luke replied quickly, glaring at him. “Get _that_ thought out of your head - it’s not happening.” 

Vader looked away. They had strayed far from what he had wanted to tell his son, which was that he would be moving against the Hutts, and now he was uncertain how to return to that topic. 

“I don’t blame you for what happened,” Luke said. “Don’t think that either. The stormtroopers just… did it because they could. Because I suppose to them it was the easier option.” His words trailed away and he looked lost in thought. In memory. 

“Soon such things will no longer happen on Tatooine,” Vader told him, struck by sudden inspiration. “I shall see to that.”

Luke looked up. “What do you mean… you mean you’re sending a ship there? But Jabba… the Hutts…”

“We shall see the end of them as well. The Depuran will burn.”

Luke’s eyes filled with hope, “I’m going with you,” he said, and the Force flared with the strength of his sudden determination. Vader’s instinctive reaction was to forbid it. The dangers would be too great. But Luke was still talking. “Jabba’s done too much to hurt the people of Tatooine. I want to help however I can to see him gone, and if I’m going there to look for another temple then we’d be catching two bantha with one net. I _have_ to go.”

If he forbid this then there would be another fight. That much was very clear. Vader was also very aware that he had given his son enough authority that it would be easy for him to take a ship himself to travel to Tatooine, and quickly enough that Vader might not be able to countermand it. “We will take all possible measures to ensure your safety,” he told his son, stabbing the air with his finger to emphasise his point. “I will not allow this otherwise.”

Luke smiled widely. It was clear he had expected his father to put up more of a fight. “I’ll take Ezra, and maybe some of the other Inquisitors,” he said. “And Leia of course.”

“No. Absolutely not.” The words were automatic. Luke pleased grin became a glare. 

“You need to stop treating Leia like… like something you can just put away and forget about!” he said, bitter and angry. “She doesn’t deserve this. You can’t treat her like this!”

“Your sister is safe from the Emperor,” Vader replied. “That is what matters. And she has you.”

That gave Luke pause. “What do you mean?”

It was the excuse he had been waiting for, to explain. So he did, with as fit words as he could find to make Luke see that this had always been the only avenue open to them all. That he _had_ considered his options, not merely pretended that he did not have a daughter because the two of them would never agree. 

He could see he had given his son much to think about. “I… guess I can see why you did it,” Luke said, after a few moments. “Doesn’t mean I agree with it, but I understand it. It doesn’t change that I’m _bringing_ her to Tatooine with me though. No, wait!” Luke added, as Vader began to object. “She’ll still be safe! Having the Inquisitors around.. I mean surely that’ll be enough to prevent the Emperor from finding her?”

“It… may be so,” Vader replied grudgingly. 

“It won’t be any different to what we’ve all been doing here on _Executor,_ ” Luke assured him. “I promise.”

\----

**1 ABY - ISD- _Vigilance_ , leaving Arkanis system, Outer Rim Territories**

Fourth Sister had attended Second Brother and Second Sister’s meeting. All of them had been invited, which meant that since none of them wanted any of the others to have information that they didn’t, all of the Inquisitors had turned up. She hadn’t said much though. She wanted to think about this potential poisoned chalice the Twelfth Brother had presented them. 

Second Sister had advised caution. Her position had been that even if it were all true - which was not guaranteed - it was far too early to commit themselves so heavily to one side of the conflict. Everyone had agreed that while it was all very well to help Lord Vader or his son when it was for something that didn’t directly affect the war effort, this situation was different. It was also odd that Twelfth Brother had been the one to approach them about this rather than one of the Sith Lords themselves. If they really did want the Inquisitors to do this, was it being presented this way as some kind of test of their loyalty? To see how long it took them to offer their services of their own volition?

Second Sister had admitted that this was perhaps the case. It hadn’t changed her position, and everyone else, Fourth Sister included, were willing to follow her guidance. 

Besides, if this _was_ a newly discovered skill, then Darth Vader would have had some other solution in mind for this particular problem when he declared war. He didn’t _need_ them, but he - or his son - might well want to use this to consolidate their control over the Inquisitorius. 

Fourth was already well aware of the new Apprentice’s penchant for manipulation. He’d managed to get that Jedi working for him after all, and even had her and Twelfth Brother training together which was clearly some kind of miracle of persuasion. He didn’t use the Force quite right. He still kept his Sith name a secret. When they’d made that trip to Arkanis, he’d been feeling her out to see if she thought she deserved a name yet. She could easily imagine his hand behind all of this. 

Lord Luke might be playing nice now, but she knew what he was capable of when he let loose, as he had when he’d killed the Grand Inquisitor. They had to be careful.

He had made an appearance in their part of the ship himself two days ago, asking for volunteers to accompany him to Tatooine to kick the Hutts out of New Empire space, and he hadn’t made the slightest mention of what Twelfth Brother had said. Fourth Sister had agreed to his request because in this sort of situation, she wanted to be close enough to see what the Apprentice was doing. Manipulation was easier when the target was at arm’s length, metaphorically speaking, and she would not let herself be manipulated so easily. 

Rear-Admiral Rae Sloane had welcomed them on board her _Vigilance_ personally a day later, along with Lord Vader, Lord Luke, and that damned Jedi woman - the Princess Organa. Fourth Sister really didn’t like having her with them, but given the effort the Apprentice had put into bringing her over to their side it was only natural that he wouldn’t risk leaving her behind. Now their fleet was leaving Arkanis. Six Star Destroyers was overkill for one measly backwater planet, but clearly they were anticipating a Hutt retaliation. Tatooine and Arkanis were only an hour of hyperspace travel apart after all, so it wasn’t as though they couldn’t head back if need be. 

Killing Hutts and their criminal employees was fine by her. It didn’t have anything to do with the Master-Apprentice conflict, so she was free to do whatever the Sith Lords wanted and thus to do her best to get on their good sides. A good place to be when this latest plot eventually hatched. 

This war had better be over sooner rather than later. The galaxy wasn’t the safest place for Inquisitors at the moment. 

\----

**1 ABY - Ryloth, Gaulus Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

Pellaeon did wonder if he should have run all this past Lord Vader or his son before he started, but he couldn’t imagine either of them objecting to his actions. He was only acting to restore the good name of the Empire after all, which was what they were all fighting for. Every time he thought about it - really thought about it - he could hardly believe that the Emperor had been aware of this, had authorised this, but the further that he dug into the late Governor’s records the less he could maintain that disbelief. The rot went too far, and there had been very little effort made to hide it. 

With Governor Tarn dead, Pellaeon had been able to take over the building he’d been using as his headquarters and dismiss all of its previous staff right down to the local serva- no, call them what they were. Slaves. Tarn’s abandoned code cylinders, plucked from his cooling corpse, gave Pellaeon access to all his computer systems and thus to every little hideous detail of the slave-trading network he and far too many other system governors had been able to build across the Outer Rim. It was the result of years of work, and it could never have continued without _some_ kind of tacit acceptance from the Sector Moffs and in all likelihood from Grand Moff Tarkin himself. 

Pellaeon had never before had cause to be thankful that Tarkin had perished along with the Death Star. The Tarkin Doctrine had been distasteful and - to his mind - wrongheaded, but he hadn’t wished the man _dead_ because of it. But this… he saw now that this was all part and parcel of the same kind of outlook. Gilad knew himself well enough to be aware that part of it was his own guilt. He wasn’t only angry at these people, but at himself for being so oblivious to it all. He should have been aware of it. He should have spotted it. There had been enough clues out there but he had simply… gone along with things because that was easier. 

The planet’s prisons and his fleet’s brigs had already been full of military prisoners who had surrendered to him, but now he needed to find the space for all the civilians he had been arresting as part of trying to clean up the mess Tarn and his ilk had made of Ryloth. The overcrowding was inevitable, but he could not find it in himself to be overly sympathetic. More concerning in his mind was finding someone to act as special prosecutor for the criminal proceedings he was bringing. Under the circumstances a military court was necessary which gave him rather more leeway, but he was concerned that the Twi’lek populace would not trust any outcome they were not somehow involved in. 

They were used to people being ‘imprisoned’ and actually ending up half-way across the galaxy. Likely they would think any sentence the New Empire gave was merely a lie to pacify them while the criminals were quietly reassigned to service in some other sector. 

Equally he couldn’t give them full control over the whole thing. Some of those who had defected to his side were uneasy enough about his ‘leniency’ with the natives, and Pellaeon was afraid of sparking the fighting off all over again. 

The main good thing at present was that no-one seemed to have heard anything about Free Ryloth. There had been no guerilla attacks, no terrorist actions. Pellaeon hoped that this was because they approved of what he was doing, but he thought it more likely they were simply watching and waiting until they had a better idea of the kind of man he was - and what his _true_ intentions were here. These kind of people were not natural optimists. 

If only he could reach out to them somehow. If he could make contact maybe he could make Free Ryloth see that he meant all that he said, and that he was serious about prosecuting those who had been oppressing and enslaving them for years. 

He had no idea how to do so though… unless he made no attempt to hide that this was what he wanted to do. If he simply… announced it to the planet as a whole. An official message stating that he hoped to hear from the group and its leader Cham Syndulla. That would surely make them curious enough to do something, even if they thought he was trying to set a trap for them. 

Yes. Yes, he would do that. Gilad couldn’t see any other way of achieving his goal.

\-----

Pellaeon wasn’t sure what had woken him up. The room was quiet and dark, with the only light that of Ryloth’s moon creeping in between the security shutters. A glance at his chrono showed it was the middle of the night. Had it been a noise? If so, there was no sign of it now. He turned over, thinking he would simply go back to sleep, but something had him on edge. Instinct perhaps. He threw the covers off himself and got up. He kept a blaster pistol under his pillow, the habit of long years, and he reached for it now. He had the feeling he was being watched, and he didn’t like it. 

The lights snapped on suddenly. Blinking and half-blinded, Pellaeon was unable to react - and then the hard round barrel of a blaster was being pressed against his ribs. 

“Sit back down Imp,” someone told him, in the accented tones of a Ryloth native. 

Pellaeon did as he was told. He didn’t see much other choice. His eyes had adapted now to the sudden change, and he found himself surrounded by three Twi’leks, two male and one female. They were all rough-looking, scarred and with those markings on their lekku - he had always been unsure if those were paint or tattoos. They were armed as well of course, which told him enough. Tarn had made it a crime for any Twi’lek to own a weapon some years ago. 

“Free Ryloth, I presume,” he said. 

The two men looked at each other, then stood aside, revealing a figure whom Pellaeon recognised at once from security dossiers and wanted posters. Cham Syndulla. This was not the meeting he had been envisioning. 

“Gilad Pellaeon,” Syndulla said, sneering. “You claim to want to talk with us. With me. Why?”

“Are the guards still alive?” Pellaeon asked, keeping his voice as calm as he could. 

“Only stunned,” Syndulla replied, to Gilad’s relief. “Answer my question.”

Pellaeon had not expected that he would have to muster his most persuasive arguments at this time of night and whilst still half asleep, but he intended to do his best. He sat up a little straighter and cleared his throat. “I know you do not trust me,” he said. “And I understand that you have no reason to do so. Trust would be too much to ask for after everything that the Empire has done to Ryloth. Trust is _not_ what I’m asking. What I want is to prove to you that I am not like Governor Tarn, or like any of those other Imperial slavers.” He paused, moistening his lips. Syndulla was giving him a wary look, but he was still listening. 

“I want to do what is right for the people of Ryloth,” Pellaeon said. “You _are_ citizens of the Empire, although I know very well that up until now you have never been treated that way, or given the rights that you deserve to have. What I stand for and what Darth Vader stands for is not slavery and corruption but order, peace, and the rule of law. I intend to free every slave on Ryloth - and the same goes for the slaves on every planet that becomes part of the New Empire.”

“You certainly speak as if you mean that,” Cham Syndulla said, frowning. “And yet we of Ryloth have heard such promises before, many times. Promises that have been broken as easily as a dried twig. Words written on sand are easily swept away.”

“Those words can be carved into duracrete if that is what it takes,” Pellaeon replied. “I know you won’t simply accept what I’m saying without some kind of guarantee. I want Ryloth to join Vader’s Empire as a partner, not a pawn.”

“We have had enough of outsiders, of Empires, Republics, Confederacies,” Cham said, baring his teeth. “Ryloth can take care of itself.”

“If you kill me, chase us out, Palpatine _will_ take Ryloth back,” Pellaeon said quickly. “No planet has ever been able to stand entirely independent from the wider affairs of the galaxy. I understand that you want to have a hand in governing Ryloth and I am not opposed to that!”

_That_ made Cham hesitate. Pellaeon had expected it would. “What do you mean by that?” Syndulla asked. 

This was not going to be a popular decision, as Pellaeon was well aware. But he had been giving it some thought, and he had come to see that it was the only possible way to draw the fangs of Free Ryloth. “I mean that the position of planetary governor is vacant at present.”

Whatever Cham Syndulla had thought would come from his mouth, that had not been it. He had been struck speechless, which Pellaeon guessed was not a common occurrence in this man’s life. 

“I am no-one’s puppet,” he said eventually. 

“Then I am sure we will be able to work together for the good of all Ryloth,” Pellaeon said. Inside he was smiling. This might not look like a victory from the outside, but it was one all the same.


	46. Chapter 46

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vader demonstrates remarkable self-control, an example is made, Luke leads and expedition, and we check in on the Rebel Alliance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Devastated about Carrie Fisher tbh. Long may she live on in all of our memories.

**1 ABY - Tatooine, Arkanis sector, Outer Rim Territories**

It always paid to listen to gossip on Tatooine. For Oola, as it was for most people in her position, it was the only way they had of getting hold of any information about the wider world. _Depuran_ didn’t tell slaves anything, but they didn’t hold their tongues around them either. To Jabba and his court, she was just another piece of furniture. The gossip of late had been particularly interesting as well, although she didn’t know how much of it she could trust. The things that were being said didn’t sound believable. By all accounts the Empire was in chaos, in the midst of a violent civil war, and the criminal factions of the galaxy were doing well off it. 

The war hadn’t come to Tatooine, at least not yet. Even if it had, stuck inside the walls of Jabba’s palace Oola wasn’t even sure she’d be able to tell. Jabba himself seemed unconcerned by it all, content to laugh at the misfortune of others and take any opportunities for profit which came his way. 

Things seemed a little different this morning though. Oola had noticed it from the moment she’d arrived in the throne room and taken up her usual place on the steps leading up to the Hutt’s dais, collared and chained - although the chain was more because Jabba liked to yank on it for his amusement than to prevent her escape. If she ran, the transmitter buried inside her flesh would be activated and she’d be killed - anything more was just for show. The court had been more subdued than usual so far, and there was a slightly strained quality even in the music the band was playing. Oola was good at reading the atmosphere of a room - she had to be. It was a survival skill. But just because she knew things were off gave her no clue as to what might be causing it. 

A few petitioners came before Jabba over the next few hours and bargains were struck, but there weren’t as many as normal either. Perhaps their minds were on other things. A little before midday, Bib Fortuna approached Jabba and began speaking quietly. Oola must have been the only person close enough to hear - but to them, she _was_ no person. She strained to make out the whispered back and forth - it was rare to hear _Depur_ whisper. Normally he had one volume; loud. 

“ _Their fleet has taken up a blockade position, esteemed Lord Jabba,_ ” Fortuna was saying in Huttese. 

_“A bluff_ ,” Jabba replied in the same language. “ _I know him, we have made deals before. He has a heavy hand but he is a well-collared nexu._ ”

“ _Far be it for a lowly one such as I to point this out mighty Jabba,_ ” Fortuna said, “ _but the nexu has removed its collar._ ”

“ _He wants the aid of our clans to bite the hand that placed it on him,_ ” Jabba said, laughing in his usual unpleasant way. “ _And he’ll have it if he can make it worth our time._ ”

Fortuna’s head dipped down in a low bow. _“I believe several shuttles are on their way._ ”

“ _Then we shall see what Vader has to bargain with,_ ” Jabba said. 

Oola did not externally react. She certainly hadn’t expected this though. She was aware - again from gossip, rather than from seeing him with her own eyes - that Darth Vader had come to Jabba’s court before on Imperial business. Evidence, if she hadn’t had enough already, of the close ties between the Empire and the Hutts and probably the other criminal empires out there. The Empire had been the one to sell her to Jabba in the first place, after all. 

Now Vader was here again, in force. Wanting the Hutt’s help in making himself Emperor, no doubt, cementing himself amongst the ranks of the _Depuran. Depur_ to the galaxy. Power changed hands over and over, but none of that ever changed anything for the people who really needed help. 

Previously Jabba had always ordered the throne room cleared when he had these kinds of meetings, but not this time. Oola wondered if this was his own version of a show of strength, or at least a way of saying that he didn’t think much of Vader’s threat. There wasn’t any sign of nervousness in him - no sign of anything other than confidence. Much as she might wish otherwise though, Jabba’s arrogance was not unfounded. 

The band played on. How would Vader made his entrance, she wondered? With great pomp and circumstance? Perhaps not - he didn’t seem the type to care much for ceremony, just for fear. He wouldn’t get _that_ ; Jabba didn’t fear him. 

The throne room had no doors, just low arches cut into the walls in a number of places. Stairs led up to the palace’s main door above them. Oola was watching them, in between watching the crowd of the court for any small thing that might bubble over into violence, as it so often did. She saw heavy black boots on the steps, and then a black cape curving around the figure approaching. Silence rippled out from Vader as other people began to notice his arrival. Oola sat up a little straighter on the edge of the dais, curling herself so that if need be she could spring into motion and be on her feet with a second’s notice. 

Vader had brought an honour guard with him, but not stormtroopers as she had expected. These were for the most part masked figures garbed in close-fitting bodysuits and slimline armour, all aside from the blue-and-white astromech droid and the human pair to either side of Vader himself. A man and a woman, both young - too young for the positions of importance they clearly held. Stranger still, none of them appeared to be armed - or at least not with conventional weapons, blasters and the like. Oola was too young to remember the Jedi, but she had seen pictures on Ryloth. She had seen pictures of the energy blade that Vader wielded too. The hilts held inside circular guards which these masked people had hanging at their waists were not quite the same, but they were close enough to make her suspicious. 

Jabba laughed. It was even louder than usual in the silence. The band had stopped at some point, although Oola couldn’t have put her finger on when. 

“ _Darth Vader_ ,” he said, in Huttese. “ _Is that a pretty Rebel plaything you have brought me as a gift?_ ” 

Oola shivered, caught by a sudden chill. The room seemed very cold now when it had been merely comfortable before. There was a palpable sense of menace radiating from Vader. She glanced back at her _Depur_ so she could follow the direction of his gaze; he was looking at the young woman, the pale-faced one with her hair done up in complicated braids. It took a moment, and then she realised what he meant; that was the Princess of Alderaan - and its former Senator - Leia Organa. She had the kind of bounty on her head that made her a keen topic of gossip on Tatooine, the more so because no-one had managed to claim it yet. Her name had always amused Oola, and looking at her now she felt that Krayt Dragon was a fitting title for the Princess. There was a strange sense of power around her.

Vader took a step forwards, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, and Oola thought he might be about to attack regardless of what he had come here to bargain for, but then he visibly checked himself, pulled himself back from the brink of violence. 

Next to Jabba, Bib Fortuna stepped forwards sketching a low bow in with the movement, and began to translate the Hutt’s words into Basic - as he often did for the court although most didn’t need it. He didn’t get far - Vader’s hand came up and the Twi’lek cut off mid-sentence with a choking noise. He was clawing at his throat and swallowing rapidly as though trying to clear a blockage. Oola couldn’t take her eyes off him - or at least she couldn’t until Vader started to speak. Then surprise made her turn, because he was speaking in Huttese. 

“ _I am not speaking to you,_ ” Vader said. “ _I am speaking to your master. I want him to understand what is to come._ ”

Jabba chuckled. “ _Your shows of force mean little here Vader. You have come to ask a favour of the Hutts. Let us dispense with the pleasantries - as you always do - and begin to bargain._ ”

“ _You are gravely mistaken about my intentions,_ ” Vader replied - and then his hand was rising again. His attention was fixed on the Hutt, and slowly Jabba’s great bulk began to rise up into the air. Oola watched in astonishment as the massive slug-like body began to writhe, slow contortions like a sand snake that had been stomped on by a boot. Some kind of pressure was bearing down on the Hutt. It could be seen in the way his skin was moving, flattening, then folding, gripped in the vice of massive fingers. Flesh began to split and thick slime spilled out bringing a heavy, pungent stink with it. Jabba was squealing - a high-pitched involuntary noise of pain. 

The court did not sit idle and allow this to happen. Blasters were out of holsters and shots filled the air - Oola could hear the whine of the bolts all around them, see the flashes of light out of the corner of her eyes - but nothing seemed able to stop this slow death Vader was inflicting. It looked agonising, a death by inches. A battle was going on around her but she couldn’t look away. 

“ _Too long have you controlled Tatooine_ ,” Vader was saying. “ _Too long, slavemaster. This is justice, this is vengeance. This is the lash on the back of thousands. This is water stolen from the mouths of children. This is the breaking of chains._ ”

With a wet pop, the splits in Jabba’s skin became great rents, his body stretched and squeezed and nearly torn in half in some places. His wildly rolling eyes flickered and became still. That foul tongue lolled slack from the gaping mouth. Then the corpse was released from Vader’s unnatural grip. It fell onto the cold stone of the dais with a loud slap. Mucus and other fluids went flying, making Oola duck away in disgust. Yet she could still hardly believe what she had seen. Jabba, dead. Well and truly dead. 

And what had _that_ been from Vader? Words, a speech, like _that_? It had echoed with the kind of sentiment she expected to hear from… well, from people like her, not from a _Depur_. 

He was speaking again - although in Basic this time, for the benefit of the court or those who were still left. It was carnage now with the floor littered with corpses, yet strangely little blood. The weapons - which she was sure now must be lightsabers - had been holstered once any resistance died away. “Tatooine belongs to the New Empire,” Vader said. “Its people are our citizens. The slaves shall be freed - _that_ will no longer be tolerated here.”

This was almost too much for her to believe. She couldn’t take it in. _Vader_ was saying this?

The young man who had been standing at Vader’s side came over to her. He gave her a reassuring smile, and pulled a short cylinder from a clip on his belt. “ _Be unfettered sister_ ,” he said - in _Amatakka_. While she was still trying to process this he activated the… and yes, it _was_ a lightsaber… and with great delicacy used the blade to cut through the collar around her neck. 

Cautiously, Oola stood. “ _Who are you brother?_ ” she asked in a whisper. 

“ _Luke Skywalker,_ ” he replied. “ _We’re here to rescue you. All of you._ ”

\----

Luke was feeling rather proud of his father. The moment Jabba had made that comment about Leia he had expected their plan - which was admittedly based mostly on intimidation and provoking rumours - to be blown apart by the stormwind of Vader’s rage, which wouldn’t have settled with just the Hutt’s death but would have turned on everyone else in here as well. Given the kind of people that these were that might not have been the worst thing in the world - Force knew most of them had to deserve it. Anyone hanging around Jabba’s court was slaver scum and should be treated as such, but it wouldn’t be right to just kill them without provocation. As it turned out though they offered that provocation in their attempts to defend Jabba.

In the aftermath the room was full of the dead and the scent of burning flesh, with the survivors those who had either fled or hidden. The Inquisitors rounded them up, which left the decision of what ought to be done with them next.

Admiral Pellaeon had the right idea of it. Luke had been amongst those receiving the man’s reports. He was setting the standard for the New Empire on Ryloth, making arrests and setting up a military tribunal to see that justice was done. _Justice,_ not vengeance, although it was true that one egg of the dragon could not exist without the other. The two were part of a greater whole, or two sides of a coin, or whatever other metaphor you wanted to use. Real justice was a kind of vengeance.. 

Luke knew just how angry his father was. He could feel it in the Force. Vader had kept it under control though rather than lashing out, and Luke suspected that had something to do with his and Leia’s presence. Their father… didn’t want to disappoint them. It was a warming thought. 

Jabba was dead now and the reasons behind it had to be clear to every one of the survivors. This wasn’t just random violence. It was retribution for all his evil acts over many, many years, and it was a statement that these things would not continue. The message would get out after Artoo broadcast his recording of it to the planet at large. From there it would echo further, until the Hutt Clans heard of it. Then revenge would come, but they were anticipating it, planning for it. 

Luke stepped forwards to break out the Twi’lek chained to the dais, although he was well aware it wouldn’t be true freedom until her slave-chip was taken out as well. She had been watching Jabba’s death as though she was in a dream, and he could feel in the Force that even now she didn’t truly believe that it had happened. She had been a slave long enough that any hope of escape had left her long ago. Luke wasn’t looking deeply into her mind, but what little of it he skimmed was painful. She had suffered so, and there were so many others just like her out in the galaxy who were still suffering. 

Thank the Force his father had never lost so much of himself to the Dark Side that he’d accepted slavery. Sidious had stopped him objecting too much, but he hadn’t stamped out the knowledge that it was _wrong._

“ _Be unfettered sister_ ,” he said, in his halting, imperfect _Amatakka_. It seemed… right for the moment. He could see that he had surprised her greatly though. 

“ _Who are you brother?_ ” she asked him in return.

“ _Luke Skywalker,_ ” he replied. “ _We’re here to rescue you. All of you._ ”

“ _I heard what Vader said,_ ” she told him, slipping now into Huttese - but perhaps that was because they were in mixed company. From Luke’s understanding, _Amatakka_ was rarely used in the presence of free-folk. “ _Is that really true? Coming from someone like him…_ ”

“ _He’s not what you think,_ ” Luke was quick to reply. 

“ _In your Empire he is second only to Palpatine,_ ” the twi’lek said, eyes wide. “ _He is one of the Depuran_.”

Luke winced. “ _He’s the farthest thing from that possible,_ ” he replied. “ _And it isn’t_ my _Empire. No, Vader may have done many terrible things for the Emperor, but he has ended that now, and he has always wanted to see the end of slavery in the galaxy._ ”

He could see that she wanted to object to that. But she suddenly looked away from him, ducking her head as she did so. Luke realised that his father had approached them, and was now standing at his shoulder. 

“ _There is no need for fear sister_ ,” Vader said, speaking in an _Amatakka_ much more fluent than Luke’s own attempts. “ _Depur is vanquished and the Depuran will burn._ ”

If the twi’lek had been surprised to hear Luke speak that language, it was nothing on how shocked she was to hear it coming from Darth Vader. 

“ _Now I know I’m dreaming,_ ” she said quietly to herself. 

“ _This is no dream but the dream made real,_ ” Vader replied. “ _My medics will join us shortly to remove the transmitters from everyone here - and soon enough every slave on Tatooine._ ”

“ _How…?_ ” the woman asked. “ _How do you even know Amatakka_?”

Vader didn’t answer straight away. For a moment Luke thought he wouldn’t do so at all, but finally he said, “ _I was born here. Long ago.”_

“ _You were freed?”_

_“In a manner of speaking.”_

Luke could sense the thoughts flickering across the woman’s mind, and he was sure his father could as well. Suspicion, disbelief amidst a growing and grudging acceptance, and anger - anger that only _now_ Vader had come to do something when of course she believed he had had such power for years. Luke wanted to explain it to her, make her see that his father had been as much a slave under Sidious as under his first owner, but it was not his story to tell. Vader wouldn’t tell it either - there was too much pain in those memories. 

“ _What happens now?_ ” the twi’lek asked. 

“ _We await the Hutt’s response._ ”

\----

**1 ABY - Jabba’s Palace, Tatooine, Arkanis System, Outer Rim Territories**

Jabba’s remains and those of his minions had been cleared up from his throne room, and the surviving members of his court imprisoned in the cells tunnelled into the rock beneath them until it could be decided what to do with them. Some were certainly slavers, but others were just pirates, smugglers, bounty hunters and others who did business with the Hutts. They were criminals under the laws of the Empire - and those bits of the law Vader had _not_ changed. Still there would need to be trials if they were to be kept locked up, and trials needed proof. That was something which was being forced to wait until they became more organised. 

Vader himself had returned to the fleet, although it had taken some persuading to make him go without Luke, Leia or the Inquisitors. For now Luke had made the palace his base. They would be searching for the temple from here. At the moment he was preparing to meditate on the matter, although there was another avenue of information he would seek first.

The Force was strong on Tatooine. Luke hadn’t noticed it before, but back then he had hardly even known what the Force was, much less have been able to sense it even if he’d known how. It seemed obvious now. There were currents in it, far beneath the earth and in the sky. It pooled around towns and what counted for cities here, drawn to the convergence of life, but those were not the only places in which the Force seemed to take an interest. It was out in the desert too. The Tusken, or the Jawas perhaps? He wasn’t able to tell. 

Unlike Arkanis or Vjun, it was not the Dark Side that held sway here. It was the Light - or at least the form of it which Luke had come to use. Perhaps he had been remembering something unconscious from his childhood, or perhaps it had to do with the concept Alkamar always emphasised; the way cultural meaning shaped the Force. 

Speaking of Alkamar, he needed her advice again. He needed her to guide him to the temple here. In fact, it might very well be the temple her holocron had been taken from, the one the Jedi had raided in their great Sith hunt millennia ago. He brought out her holocron and reached for the Force. He knew how to do this now, how to harness the Dark only just enough to use its signature without being influenced by it. The holocron cracked open, its light shining through. 

“I hope all goes well with you, my student,” Alkamar said once she had appeared. 

“Perhaps not as well as we’d hoped,” Luke confessed. It felt good to confide in her - he could do so to his father, or Leia, or Ezra, but each of them had their own agendas. Only Alkamar was far enough removed from the situation by the thousands of years since her death to offer him an impartial ear. “The temple documents confirmed that this ability that the Emperor has really does exist, and even that there is some way to stop it. But we couldn’t find anything to tell us _how._ ”

“And so you have come here,” Alkamar said. “To Tatooine.”

“You can sense that somehow?” Luke asked.

“The Force is different here.”

He couldn’t deny that, not when he’d just been thinking the same thing. “There’s a temple here somewhere, isn’t there,” he said. “We were hoping it might be able to give us answers, or at least somewhere to look.”

“You have a map?”

Luke had been prepared for this. Jabba might not have been one for cleanliness or organisation, but he had been canny when it came to keeping the planet under his control. That meant detailed charts of the planet’s surface - even to some extent the southern hemisphere with its continuous sun-pointing tilt. There were no permanent settlements down there, which made Luke wonder if it might also hold their destination. In such a desolate place, a temple could have gone unnoticed for so many years. He activated the holo-table and set the holocron on the edge of it so that Alkamar’s holoform could get a complete view. 

“The planet has grown more arid over the centuries,” Alkamar remarked. “Yet the mountains and other features have not had any great change.” A narrow beam of light shone from the holocron, targeting a place in one of the southern mountain chains. Luke took note of the latitude and longitude. 

“Thank you,” he said. .

“I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

\----

Leia had chosen to sit with her brother in the cockpit of the Imperial Shuttle for the trip to the southern half of the planet. There was less room to stretch out, but she couldn’t imagine anything worse than spending a couple of hours in the company of four Inquisitors. The other bonus was that it allowed her to look at the view, not that there was all that much out there to see. Just sand and rock, and the very occasional evidence of a camp or moisture farm, which grew further and further between as they went. She hadn’t known much about Tatooine - she still didn’t save what Luke had told her. Apparently it was too hot in the southern hemisphere to sustain life - but a short expedition was manageable enough. They had brought plenty of supplies. 

The mountain range that concealed their destination was starting to become just visible on the horizon now. It wasn’t particularly impressive by her standards, but she had been used to the towering geography of Alderaan. All of that… the high snow-capped peaks, the deep green valleys… she would never see any of it again. She was glad this range was so dissimilar. Her memories were painful enough as it was. 

The shuttle was a space-faring craft, not limited by atmosphere. Luke took them in a high arc over the worn summits, following the route the computer had charted. “Not much longer now,” he told her quietly. 

“Do you really think it will be there after so long?” she asked. 

“Unless the Jedi did something to it while they were here, there’s no reason why not.” Luke shrugged. “We don’t have any other leads.” Which sadly was true. 

As promised, soon enough they were dipping lower and banking around one particular peak, ducking into a ravine that opened up around them, high walled and sharp-edged. Luke navigated them with care along it, taking it much slower than she knew he needed to. He was keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of the temple, as was she - nether of them knew quite what they were looking for. 

The walls of the ravine were beginning to curve overhead. It was as though they were being swallowed up by some massive throat. The light of Tatooine’s suns began to dim, but the shuttle had its own illumination which was at least strong enough to prevent them from running into the rock. That was becoming easier though, for the ravine itself was widening around them. 

“Look,” Luke said, taking one hand of the controls to point. “Is that…?”

There was a wide lip of rock jutting out in front of them. The upper surface was too unnatural in its smoothness to be a normal formation. Someone had built this, polished it flat. 

“Let’s check it out,” she said. 

Luke set the shuttle down. As the low rumble of the engines died away, Ezra poked his head up from the ladder that led down to the hold. “Are we here?” he asked. 

“Maybe,” Luke replied, unstrapping himself from the pilot’s chair. “Let’s go take a look.”

The six of them filed out onto the shelf of rock. It took Leia’s eyes a moment to adjust to the lowered levels of light, but then she could make out an opening in the wall to their left. The stone around it was weathered, but there was the very faint suggestion that perhaps there had once been carvings here. Maybe even statues. It looked promising. 

“Do we go in?” one of the other Inquisitors asked - although in a respectful tone of voice. 

Luke nodded. “Be mindful of the Force,” he said. “From my experience, temples often seem to hold surprises in that respect.”

Sabres activated to light their way, they strode into the darkness of the cave. 

\----

**1 ABY - Alliance High Command, Dac, Mon Calamari System, Outer Rim Territories**

The amount of intelligence received by Alliance Intelligence grew every day as they made further inroads into the sectors of the Outer Rim. Mon had lost much hope for their cause in those terrible days before the destruction of the Death Star, but even before the loss of so many ships at Scarif she wouldn’t have dreamed of such success. Of course back then she had still hoped for a peaceful solution to the Empire’s tyranny, even if she had lost any idea of how such a thing might come about. The Death Star and the dissolution of the Senate had forced their hand, forced open war, but now the tide had turned. Now the Alliance actually seemed to be winning.

That was only in comparison to their previous lack of success, mind you. The slice of the galaxy they had carved out was still a relatively small one, and their forces were naturally spread thin trying to cover it. There had been defections from the Empire and pledges of support from planets now under their aegis to bulk out their numbers, but even so… 

Mon Mothma regarded the galactic map in front of her. Alliance space was beginning to butt up against the Hutts to spinward, and against the tattered remnants of the Zygerrian Empire in the other direction. The Zygerrians had been much reduced since Palpatine had come to power, but it had only forced their nobility to adopt a rather Hutt-like way of doing things. In short the Alliance was surrounded by criminals and slavers - surrounded save corewards, where the Perlimian Trade Route theoretically gave them a straight-line shot at Coruscant itself. Attacking Coruscant was beyond their capabilities at the moment however even if that route hadn’t been thick with Interdictors at all the major planets along it. 

No, it would be system by system going that way. Mon was highly aware of the need to avoid biting off more than they could chew. Several of the systems that were nominally theirs had been ones where Alliance Forces had arrived to find them under the control of Imperial officers who had heard and approved of Vader’s broadcast. Making them aware of the official truce between their sides had generally been sufficient to stop them attacking, but that didn’t mean they were willing to lend the weight of their ships and resources to the Alliance. At times they had been willing to offer aid against Emperor loyalists on an individual basis, but if Vader were to call for them she had no illusions that they would stay. 

Vader… Yes, many of the recent reports she had received had been about Vader. Mon spun the map so that it focused round on the Arkanis Sector. As far as Intelligence could make out, that was where Vader was hiding, massing his forces. There had been rumours of some falling-out with the Hutt Clans which supported that. Who knew how big the territory was that _he_ had claimed. 

Still, she couldn’t worry about that now. They had more worlds to win.


	47. Chapter 47

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Inquisitors run into trouble in the temple, Palpatine is displeased, and Piett has an unpleasant encounter at Arkanis.

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

Aphra had, if not quite come to terms with what she’d found in the sealed medical records, at least stopped feeling as if everything she knew about how the world worked had come crashing down around her. It left her feeling unmoored, floating free. Sometimes her surroundings didn’t feel quite real. Time blunted the edges of all pain though, even this kind, and she was a survivor above all. Power was still important, power could still keep you safe. What had been done to Darth Vader was just… an aberration. That was all. 

Luke - along with Vader himself - had left on a mission for the war effort. Aphra had not been invited, but then her role had never been one suited to open battle. She was the sneaky one, the infiltrator, an agent who could go places Vader couldn’t. He was going to need a spy again at some point - all governments needed spies. She could still be useful, and useful meant protected. 

Even if that protection wasn’t quite the comfort it used to be, that was _her_ problem. 

The clone medic Kix was still on board though, kept busy by all those other clones who had lost bits on the HoloNet station. Lots of physical therapy and gradual healing. A luxury they didn’t deserve - it had been denied to their master, and seeing as they had _betrayed_ him… but she still had a responsibility to turn these files over, and she had put it off long enough. Let Kix look at them, and give him enough time before Vader came back that he could decide what he might want to do about it all. In the meantime Aphra would find something to do to take her mind off things.

\----

**1 ABY - Tatooine, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

After the last temple she had followed the Apprentice into, Fourth Sister wasn’t sure what to expect. Not anything good, at least. The other one hadn’t been pleasant with that strange Force energy so strong all around it, messing with her mind even through her shields. It shouldn’t even have existed. How could an entire temple stay lost and forgotten on a planet whose very purpose was training Inquisitors? It made no sense and it made her uneasy. 

The tunnel entrance was swift to swallow them up. It had been unpleasantly warm outside, although at least they’d been out of direct sunlight that her black uniform would have eagerly swallowed up. Here it was a little cooler and more comfortable, although the air she was sucking in through her mask was just as arid. The illumination from their lightsabers was just enough to show up the path in front of them and cast shadows dancing on the walls all around. Fourth Sister tried not to look too closely. Was it just her imagination telling her the shadows didn’t match up, or something else?

She felt out with the Force. Tatooine was… strange. It was a little like that temple had been, not Light, not Dark, but something different. Wild? Hard to say. Hard to put it into words. Even harder to get to grips with the strangeness and decide whether or not it was getting stronger as they made their way deeper. 

Her foot hit something - it skittered away and bounced off one wall. The Apprentice crouched down to pick it up and turned it over in his hand. 

“It’s metal,” he said aloud. “Too oxidised and corroded to tell what it used to be.” He dropped it again and stood up. “Keep an eye out for anything else lying around.”

As the six of them continued on the passageway twisted and turned without any obvious pattern, but it never seemed to get any wider. Fourth Sister was beginning to wonder if this really was the entrance to a temple or rather a natural cave system they’d wandered their way into with no end in sight. At least there were no offshoots from the main tunnel - they couldn’t get lost. Then from the front of the party the Jedi woman’s voice was raised in tones of surprise. 

“Look here,” she said. Fourth Sister peered around Ninth Brother’s bulky shoulder to see what she was talking about. Organa was holding her lightsaber - which she should _never_ have been given back, honestly - so that the light it cast fell more fully onto the wall. It showed up deep shadows - gashes carved into the rock. Long, straight, and seemingly meaningless patterns of interlocking lines. Fourth Sister narrowed her eyes, trying to make out sense of it. 

“From a lightsaber,” Twelfth Brother said, making her frown, but then she realised he was right. It did look like that, like someone had taken a lightsaber to the wall in rage or in the heat of battle, scarring the stone. 

“Alkamar did say the Jedi had come here,” the Apprentice said, sounding displeased. The hint of anger in his voice was enough to make her flinch, nearly, not quite. Not enough to be noticeable. 

“This isn’t proof of anything,” Organa replied. 

“It’s proof we might be in the right place.”

“Fine, I’ll give you that,” the Jedi said. It was… unnatural, to see Sith and Jedi speaking to each other like that. Almost jokingly. Fourth Sister would be more comfortable once she knew Luke’s plan to turn the Jedi had worked and once she had some proof of it. Until then it was just creepy. 

_Get out_.

Fourth Sister froze. That whisper had come from behind her… except there wasn’t anyone behind her. Very slowly she turned her head to look… but there was nothing there. Just empty darkness, stretching behind her. No, no, she must have imagined it. This place was just getting to her after her experiences at the last temple. 

_Sithling scum._

Was… was anyone else hearing this? Nobody seemed to be reacting but maybe they simply didn’t want the others to think they were jumping at shadows, just like her. There was something in the Force, a feeling that she was being watched, but there were no minds or bodies out there for her to pin it to. For all that her senses were telling her, there was nothing here but the six of them and Twelve’s pets. 

_Get out of my head temple_ , she thought viciously, sure that was what must be causing this. Mocking laughter was all the reply she got. Fourth Sister did her best to ignore that. The Apprentice was on the move again anyway, leading them deeper. 

From then on it was difficult to tell whether the atmosphere was getting more oppressive because of something physical, because of her justified paranoia, or because of this permutation of the Force she simply didn’t understand. The air here was beginning to become a little less arid, although it was still far from damp. The passage was growing ever narrower though, she was sure of it. They had been able to walk two abreast when they entered, and that was no longer the case. 

Ahead, Luke stopped abruptly. Fourth Sister nearly walked into the back of Sixth Sister, who turned on her baring her teeth. She returned the threat in her own grimace - though neither of them were about to start something with the Apprentice watching. Anyway it looked like they had come to a dead end. 

“That’s… interesting,” Luke said. He was holding his hand out - the one not holding his lightsaber - feeling the air like someone groping in the dark. For a moment his eyes flickered closed, and Fourth Sister remembered the door in the last temple she’d been in with him. Please Dark, don’t let him use the Light again! He didn’t though. He simply… stepped forward. 

Solid rock - or rather the illusion of solid rock - melted away into mist around him. Fourth Sister cursed inside her head, feeling foolish for being caught out by something like that. She knew better - they all did. They’d been taught to see through Force trickery like that. It was something about the Force here, it _had_ to be. Nothing _else_ made any sense! 

“Follow me,” the Apprentice said. 

On the other side of the illusion the walls disappeared away to either side and by the sense of emptiness and chill in the air all around them Fourth suspected they were in a grand hall of some kind. The light from their sabers lit only a small circle around them, enough to see that close by the floor was strewn with rubble. It looked as though someone had blasted their way in - perhaps the illusion hadn’t _always_ been an illusion. 

“Everyone spread out,” the Apprentice ordered. “Let’s see what we can find.”

\----

**1 ABY - Imperial Palace, Imperial Centre, Corusca Sector, Core Worlds**

A certain level of incompetence amongst one's subordinates was to be expected and was no more than the cost of doing business, but _this_ … this was intolerable. Darth Sidious let the lightning play over the twitching body of the Admiral who had so utterly failed to subdue the latest few defectors attempting to make contact with his wayward Apprentice via the Christophsis system. He took some small degree of pleasure in the pulse of Dark Side strength the man’s pain was giving him. A small comfort, but he would take what he could get at present. 

He truly had not thought Vader had the ambition for a plan of this magnitude. 

How long had his Apprentice been concealing his plotting beneath the cover of a beaten and broken man? Sidious might even describe himself as impressed with Vader’s duplicity. Force knew he had spent long enough trying to beat or provoke some kind of rebellious spirit back into him. With the Jedi reduced to a few insignificant individuals huddling in the backwater corners of the galaxy and the so-called Rebels (at least up until very recently) no more than a pack of fools too busy fighting amongst themselves over petty morality and their pacifist ideals to pose a real threat, total domination of known space had begun to lose its luster. 

Yes, yes, up until the last few years Darth Sidious would have described himself as… bored. 

No longer - and he might have been in some way pleased save that none of this was by his plan or design. 

It was the way of the Sith for the Apprentice to try and kill the Master. Once upon a time the thought of the games he would have had to play to keep the young, fiery-tempered and high-spirited Anakin Skywalker under his thumb and his blade away from Sidious’ back had delighted him. _That_ would have been a challenge! The pitiful ruin of flesh which he had scraped off of a lava bank on Mustafar had been a disappointment in comparison, and it was frankly an embarrassment that the nascent Sith had been defeated by Obi-Wan Kenobi of all people. Sidious had done his best to do something with Vader, but there had been little hope for any sport until now. 

How had his Apprentice even managed to become this popular with the Army and Navy? Yes, COMPNOR’s propaganda had a lot to answer for, but the man had no charisma to speak of and - as was only appropriate admittedly - he was not restrained with his anger. Darth Sidious had worked his public relations department very hard to make sure he himself was a figure loved and feared across the Empire. To lose a popularity contest to _Vader_ of all people… 

An alert chimed from the arm of his throne. Sidious roused himself from his thoughts and allowed the Force Lightning to die away. There was not much left of the idiot on the floor - the droids would have to scrape the remains off the durasteel. No matter - clearly no great loss. 

“What is it?” he demanded, pushing a button on the comm. The features of one of his advisors appeared in the projected holoform. 

“My Lord, we have received word from the Grand Hutt Council on Nar Shaddaa. They have information they believe may be of some value to you, and - or so they claim - intention to barter for an alliance of some kind.”

Vader had always hated the Hutts. Now that he no longer felt bound to follow his Master’s dictates it was more than possible that he had managed to make an enemy of those criminal cartels. A slow, cold smile spread over Sidious’ face. 

“I will speak with them,” he said. “I have great interest in what they have to say.”

\----

**1 ABY - Tatooine, Arkanis System, Outer Rim Territories**

The Temple hall was deep and dark and vast. Too dark for Fourth Sister to see further than the bubble of light cast by their lightsabers, but the size of the place could be sensed in the resonance of their footsteps. She remembered the last Temple she’d been in - that had been similarly impressive, although she had seen little of that either since what they’d been looking for had been concealed in a side room. Would the layout be similar here? It was the same culture that built them. 

The air was nearly cold. It hadn’t been so in the tunnel, but there hadn’t been anywhere for the heat to leech away to either. Here it could all be trapped up against a ceiling who knew how far overhead. Yet there was something… not quite right about it. 

Sometimes the air around Darth Vader was cold, this kind of cold. Not a pleasant thought - she wished it hadn’t occurred to her. After those whispers in her ear, the ones that no-one else seemed to be hearing…

_Out, out, OUT!_

Fourth Sister shied away from the screaming, her lightsaber coming around in a flickering guard. White light blazed, making her cry out and cover her eyes with her free hand, blinking away spots from her vision. Something pushed her. It was almost like a powerful wind - it was force and nothing but pressure that touched her skin. She stumbled backwards and fell. Her saber tumbled from her hand with a clatter. Fourth Sister rolled and scrambled for it, still half-blinded. 

Somewhere there were the noises of battle, but a long way away. Voices, shouting… but muffled. She could make out none of the words, and the cadence wasn’t quite right for Basic. Her fingers found the hilt of her lightsaber. She activated it and rolled onto her back, holding it up against any attack that might come and looking around wildly. 

The world was a place of shadows and mist. Figures were moving through it, featureless ghosts wielding lightsabers of their own which danced and clashed without sound. People were running - one came towards her, making her flinch when it actually ran _through_ her. There was no sign of the Apprentice, the Jedi, or the other Inquisitors. 

Cautiously Fourth Sister got to her feet. The ghosts seemed to be intent on their own battles and none of them even appeared to have noticed her. This was some kind of Force phenomenon and she had no doubt she was watching the ancient battle between the Jedi and native Arkanii which Luke had mentioned. If she had been more inclined to academia this might have excited her, but as it was she just wanted to get out of this strange vision she hadn’t asked for. Now, where was everyone - everyone _real,_ that was?

The Force was clouded. Full of this not-Light, not-Dark that she couldn’t read. Fourth Sister walked cautiously, skirting the raging battles as best she could. She hadn’t the faintest idea where she was going, or if it was in the ‘right’ direction. She did begin to relax a little a danger continued to fail to appear. 

The ghost-figures around her were beginning to lose their battles, falling and fading. Their absence left the surroundings darker and more ominous. The lonely victors paced around with predator stalks, searching for more victims before drifting away themselves into formless mist when none appeared. Fourth Sister was still invisible to them, which she was thankful for. She didn’t like how little she could see now though. She had no idea where she was going, or even what she was trying to get _to._ She thought… almost, just… that she could hear voices again, whispering far away, but that might just be these ghosts again, echoes in the Force or whatever they were. 

She couldn’t even use the Force to find her way out. It was… heavy. Unfamiliar. Strange. Not the Dark which would obey her or the Light that she was more than a little afraid of, but this same damned mystery that she couldn’t touch. She wasn’t Arkanii and she wasn’t Vader’s son - she had no power here. 

Was the mist pooling more heavily over there? Perhaps. She headed towards it. 

It - something - a creature - exploded from the shadows all bright and burning, bright flames and heat and fire and snarling face, fangs, claws, horns, eyes like black holes devouring the dust of stars and with it a roar like a hurricane, hot wind slapping her face and body before the beast hit and bore her down to the ground, sparks from its breath smouldering against her skin like stepping out bare-headed into Mustafar’s air, screaming snarling in her ears filling the air like a hammerblow and drilling white-hot spears of pain into her skull while talons scraped the stone to either side of her head - ‘ _why are you here how dare you be here how dare you come here sithspawn lesser demon bringer of corruption tainted heart why why why they were searching for YOU looking for YOU why do you live when we are dead why slay us when it was your blood they wanted your war your troubles trials tribulations you brought it on us all YOU YOU **YOU**_ ’.

Somehow she had lost her lightsaber somewhere in the struggle or at least it wasn’t in her hand now. It left her with both arms pushing against the great heavy chest and neck of the beast snapping its jaws in her face in an effort to fend it off - one which she knew she couldn’t keep up for long. It was so monstrously strong, and solid as stone for all it looked made of smoke, and fire inside. 

And then there was someone else there. Another set of arms wrapped around the things neck, pulling it back with impossible strength. A voice - familiar - shouting for her to run. 

Fourth Sister didn’t stay to see who it was - she wasn’t thinking anyway, just reacting. She scrambled out from beneath the beast and did what she’d been told. She didn’t look back, but a few strides had her up against the shadowy bulk of a wide pillar and a wall behind it. She wedged herself in between the two and hid, curled up, panting, scared like she _shouldn’t_ be scared, like she was never _meant_ to be scared. If she’d had the Dark Side… but she didn’t. If she’d even still had her lightsaber… but she didn’t. 

There was some kind of battle going on out there. She could hear the noises of it and she could sense it as well in the way the Force swelled and raged - but never in a way that made _sense,_ that she could _understand_. All she could do was stay crouched here and wait for it to be over. She shut her eyes tightly. 

She couldn’t really say how long it had been when she heard someone speak to her. When she opened her eyes and looked around, she was back in the real world again, and the Apprentice was standing next to her, smiling, one hand resting on the pillar. 

“Are you alright?” he said again. 

Fourth Sister pushed herself upright as quickly as she could, a cold sweat prickling over her skin and just adding to the fear-sweat that had been there before. He’d seen her. She’d shown weakness - more than that she must have looked helpless and pathetic cowering back here and now that she was able to think rationally about it she was sure it had been _him_ wrestling that Force-creature off of her. So… he would kill her, almost certainly, or perhaps make a lesson of her first. There wouldn’t be anything she could do about it. Not now. 

“Yes Lord,” she said, looking at the floor. 

“Come on. The danger’s over.” He held out a hand. Fourth Sister eyed it suspiciously, but she couldn’t see the slightest spark of lighting or sense the way the air and the Force got when someone was about to use that power. Was he asking if she wanted to die where she was, or in front of everyone else? The thought of him killing her like this, like a rat in a hole, was too much to bear. She eased herself out from behind the column and skirted past him into the wider expanse of the hall. 

There didn’t seem to be any sign of what had just happened, although she didn’t look to be the only one who’d been affected. The other Inquisitors were either still on the ground or just getting to their feet and all of their shielding was in disarray. Hers too now she came to think of it. The only person who didn’t look or feel any different was the damnable Jedi. There was some kind of ambient light around now too, just enough to see by unaided. 

“I’m sorry,” the Apprentice said. “I wasn’t expecting anything quite like that. I think that all of the death… the pain and anger and helplessness… it must have created it. It’s gone now though.”

“How?” Ninth Brother asked. 

“Leia helped,” the Apprentice said, and didn’t go into further detail - not that any of them would have dared to press. “Now… I think I know where to find what we’re looking for.”

\----

**1 ABY - Felucia system, Thanium Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

Wedge was never going to get used to flying in formation with TIE fighters again, even if these ones _were_ on their side. It had been a long time since he had been an Imperial cadet starting to realise the Empire had lied to him about everything they had claimed to stand for. He’d never had any regrets about running away to join the Rebellion when the opportunity was presented to him. There had been a few qualms at first when he’d had to shoot down people who were no different than he had been, but those had passed. He was fighting for what was right, for what was necessary. He had faith in the Alliance. 

He still had faith. A lot of people didn’t - there had been plenty of protests about the decision to ally with this off-shoot of the Empire, but even the most righteous cause had to compromise sometimes. Besides, Wedge had heard that speech just like everyone else. It seemed like Vader - of all people - had finally come to the same realisation Wedge had. The Empire was _wrong. Evil._ He wanted to change it. 

Wedge found himself strangely willing to trust that Vader actually meant it. He had wondered at first if it was the remnants of COMPNOR propaganda getting to him, but a little more self-reflection had driven that thought out of his mind. Yes, once upon a time he had looked up to Vader, or at least to the image of Vader that was all he’d known at the time. That had faded rapidly once he started flying for the Alliance and had been allowed to see the darker side of all the victories and ‘pacifications’ Vader had a hand in. Those truths that had been violently suppressed by the Empire. 

The blood Vader had shed was oceans deep. The Rebellion had a vested interest in keeping close tabs on the man, so there was no dearth of evidence for the atrocities that could be laid at his feet. They even had some footage of him in action, poor quality though it was. Alliance Intelligence had been a little leery about showing it to him in the first place which Wedge had understood after he watched it. Vader was… terrifying. The images had kept him up at night for a while, not helped by the knowledge that some day Vader might be after _him_. 

So no, he didn’t believe what Vader had said because he still had some kind of hero-worship for the guy. It was more because… well, why bother unless he meant it? If power was all Vader wanted, he could have found some other kind of justification for springing a coup, one which didn’t involve keeping promises that might prove awkward. Enough of the military would have fallen behind him just because they hadn’t had any reason to see through the propaganda. _That_ much was clear from speaking to the Imps like the ones he was flying with now. Besides, Wedge had occasionally worked with Intelligence often enough that he heard things he probably wasn’t meant to. It _wasn’t_ just lip service. Vader’s policies actually seemed to be being carried out. 

The galaxy sure could be a strange place sometimes. Wedge had never imagined it could be this strange. 

Here they were over Felucia, flying a mission that the Alliance would never have had the manpower for before all of this. Things had been rough after Scarif and the Death Star, and the stream of new recruits seeing hope for change for the first time ever had been enough to help them _start_ to rebuild, but without Vader’s Imps lending a hand and getting the Emperor off their back the Alliance would _never_ have been able to carve out a piece of the galaxy like this and keep it. 

The loyalist Imps manning the garrison were fighting them hard, but they were losing. Wedge was beginning to lose count of how many he’d shot down. He was a damn good pilot and he had the experience to back him up by now. Poor coffin-jockeys like these had the kind of life-expectancy measured in months, not years; they couldn’t say the same. Wedge was constantly thankful he’d gotten out before he reached the stage of training where they started to get them hooked on stim - both as a means of control and so they could pull 48 hour shifts without crashing. He didn’t think he’d have made it out if that had happened. 

It wouldn’t be much longer before Felucia was theirs. And after that? They had the galaxy at their feet - or at least it felt like that. Hope, hope, everywhere hope, and Wedge could barely recall feeling quite so alive. 

\----

**1 ABY - Arkanis, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

The attack came without warning, but it did not come as a surprise. Admiral Piett had been expecting them to be discovered by the Empire at some point - that much had been inevitable. Judging by the fleet which had just emerged from hyperspace however this wasn’t just a strike by Palpatine alone. There were a myriad of other ships in amongst the Star Destroyers; smaller, alien ships. 

The conclusion was obvious. The Hutts had reached out to the Emperor. They had pooled their strength to take their revenge. 

Piett turned to the right-hand bridge pit. “Signal Lord Vader’s fleet at Tatooine, and the rest of our forces across the Sector,” he ordered. “Alert them to the attack.” They were still using probe droids to courier communications, although _Executor’s_ slicers had been working on re-routing all the HoloNet relays in the region onto a completely new and separate network. The reprogramming was not yet ready however - so the droids would have to do. _Executor_ and the rest of Piett’s fleet would simply have to hold out long enough for reinforcements to arrive, and he was confident in their ability to do that much. 

“Intensify forward shields and bring all batteries online,” he said, and surveyed the forces which had been brought to bear against them. The enemy had come out of hyperspace at long range, far enough away from the planet’s gravity well that it wouldn’t have thrown off their re-entry calculations but close enough to engage rapidly. The attack formation was a modified Haviland’s Claw, with more heavily armed and shielded _Imperial-II_ class Destroyers anchoring the centre and lighter ship classes forming the encircling arms which would attempt to either pass their blockade and make planetfall, or provide omnidirectional fire to prevent intensifying shields against any particular vector. 

The traditional counter to a claw was to break the wings of the advance off from the central body of the enemy fleet, allowing them to be encircled and destroyed in turn. This did leave the potential for danger if such assaults failed to break through quickly enough, and of course for a time fire would be coming from all around - a dangerous position to be in, but there was no war without risks. It would also leave Arkanis itself vulnerable to attack - for that reason _Executor_ would be staying back to guard the hemisphere closest to the invaders. Piett had been running drills in preparation for this for weeks now.

“Pass the order for Captain Branta and Captain Needa to advance their forces,” Piett said. “And get me targeting solutions on those Deuces.” 

“Aye sir.”

Piett felt the steely calm of battle wash over him. Worries were for the past or the future, not for the present when all that mattered was moment by moment, rapid-fire decisions made with logic and rationality and allowing no space for second-guessing. He wondered who was directing the enemy forces. Not the Emperor himself - there was no reason for him to come in person and Palpatine was not a military man. Not a Hutt either - those criminals and pirates might be allies of necessity, but they could not be trusted ones. That was one point of weakness for them to exploit. It was not one fleet he faced, but two sharing the same space. Working together would be challenging for them, and there would be opportunities in that. 

Did it help to know that every officer and crew-member under his command was fighting for a cause? Perhaps. Inspiration of that sort was more effective planet-side - a Star Destroyer would not fire its turbolasers quicker or harder simply because its crew wanted it to - but it was not without value all the same. There was some small comfort in that. 

Captain Branta’s ships moved to attack the left-hand wing of the approaching formation, and Captain Needa’s the right. More properly both men were now Acting Rear-Admirals, but much as with Captain Pellaeon’s advancement they would have to prove themselves to be confirmed to their positions. If they acquitted themselves well today, they just might be. As the two lance-formations closed in the enemy wings began to sprout clouds of fighters. As though reading Piett’s mind - and indeed the heavily drilled protocols of naval combat were designed thus that it might as well be true - one of the pit-ensigns spoke up to give him numbers and compositions from _Executor’s_ scanners. Primarily TIEs, with a mixed bag of Outer Rim snubfighters to make things interesting. Turbolaser fire began to light up the battlefield as they came within effective firing distance. 

“Begin supporting fire against the centre,” Piett ordered. _Executor_ had greater range than a standard Star Destroyer, although the enemy were still too far out for properly concentrated fire. They could begin to wear down the shielding on the Deuces at any rate. 

There was little else for him to do for the time being. His officers were competent, and he had drilled them well for just this eventuality. He had an excellent view of the battlefield if any alterations to their defence were needed, but for now he could only see how things proceeded. 

They would prove victorious. He had confidence in that.


	48. Chapter 48

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Luke and Fourth Sister have a misunderstanding, Vader goes into battle, and there is still a long way to go on Ryloth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoooooo, sorry about not updating for months. First my laptop broke, which kinda broke my flow, and after that the muse wasn't really playing ball. But I have an outline of the rest of this fic, and I'm really going to try and get this bad boy finished.

**1 ABY - Tatooine, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

Luke couldn’t be entirely certain what it was he had confronted in the temple vision, but he thought his assumptions about it were probably right. He had been feeling the stirrings in the Force ever since they had entered the temple, echoes of long-ago slaughter. Alkamar had only spoken about it in the vaguest of terms, but the deep marks of lightsabers incising the walls of the entry passage and the psychic stain of death and sorrow and horror had painted a picture without words. The Jedi had come, they had killed, and they had left. The actions of those who used the Force changed the Force itself. 

Dropping into a vision hadn’t been a surprise to him. He made himself watch the imprints of the dead - he would have called them ghosts except Luke was sure he’d read things in the temple files that suggested Force ghosts were something very different - because it seemed like the right thing to do. He’d been able to feel that Leia, Ezra and the Inquisitors had been sucked into the vision as well, but it had taken a little while to find any of them and by then it was clear there was something more malevolent in there with them. No, malevolent wasn’t the right word. It was angry, but it didn’t want to hurt anyone for the sake of hurting them. The Force was grieving, and the temple had gathered up all the last moments of its inhabitants into an entity of vengeance and sorrow and everything else they had felt just before the end. 

Leia had been easy for him to find - they were connected. The same with Ezra. He didn’t have any particular link with the Inquisitors though, which meant that things had already taken a turn for the worst by the time he worked out how to reach them. 

The creature the temple had created looked a little bit like a lesser krayt dragon, but not entirely. The whole shape of it was made indistinct by smoke, but the form was… corrupted was the only way to put it. When the shadows had parted, the beast had been about to tear Fourth Sister to shreds and it had already done some damage to the other Inquisitors. There hadn’t been time to try anything fancy. Admittedly wrestling it hadn’t been his best idea ever, but he had managed to distract it long enough for Fourth Sister to get away, and after that things had become a little… mystical. 

The memories of exactly what had happened were already beginning to fade, but Luke still remembered his hands going _into_ the creature, their minds touching and a moment of complete and utter _understanding_ … Leia had tried to pull him out of it but that had only led to her getting sucked in as well - although maybe that had been what worked. When it - and the temple through it - had been able to see who they all were and why they had come. That sapped the anger, let it stop fighting. 

Although Luke’s memories of the vision were fading, there were other memories in his head now. Memories the temple had given him because he was alive to remember them and carry them out into the world. Scraps of knowledge, flashes of emotion… That’s how he knew the layout of this place now and where to go to find what they needed - although Luke half-suspected he might already know the answer to their question, buried somewhere in the confusing and overwhelming mess of what he’d been given. 

That was something to think about later, once he’d had some time to sort through it all, and talk it over with Leia. She might have been given the memories as well, but he didn’t want to ask in front of the Inquisitors. They had been hurt by that thing, not physically but mentally, and he had no idea how badly. They didn’t seem too much the worse for wear at the moment, but… Luke wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell. He was beginning to understand them a little better even if that understanding was upsetting. They would do anything to avoid showing a weakness, because they’d been taught that doing so was dangerous. And they were still afraid of him; he could sense that constantly so they would be particularly reluctant to let him see anything of how they were hurt. 

_That was… interesting._ It was Leia, speaking mind to mind. Luke met her gaze. _Is this what you get up to these days?_

_Yeah, this wasn’t really that out of the ordinary,_ he replied, feeling a touch of humour. _Did you get given something too?_

_Memories…_ Leia thought after a moment, with a slight look of confusion. _Somehow I just… knew that. Memories. But whatever does that mean?_

_Right now I couldn’t tell you,_ Luke admitted. _We can talk about it when we get back._

He looked around; Ezra seemed fine, but then he hadn’t been part of their fight - it had all happened too quickly for him to join in. His hssiss seemed nonplussed by the whole affair, and he hadn’t seen them in the vision so probably they hadn’t been affected at all. The Inquisitors they’d brought along - Ninth Brother, Sixth Sister and Fourth Sister - were starting to recover… except where _was_ Fourth Sister? The Force gave him the answer. 

Luke retrieved Fourth Sister from behind the pillar where she’d taken refuge and waited for the other Inquisitors to get themselves together. The walls were coming up in their minds, mental blast doors slamming closed. “I’m sorry,” he told them all, hoping they might actually believe he was sincere. “I wasn’t expecting anything quite like that. I think that all of the death… the pain and anger and helplessness… it must have created it. It’s gone now though.”

“How?” one of them - the Ninth Brother? - asked. 

“Leia helped,” Luke said, not sure how to describe what had happened. “Now… I think I know where to find what we’re looking for. But first, are you all okay?” He had to ask even if they were going to lie to him. 

Blank looks were all he got. That, and fear in the Force, sudden and sharp as a glass breaking. “We are fit to follow your orders Lord Luke,” the other - Sixth Sister - said, without emotion. 

“That… wasn’t entirely what I meant. Are you feeling any effects of whatever damage the temple guardian did?” Calling the thing by that name seemed… appropriate in some way. Perhaps an echo of those gifted memories. 

They shook their heads, saying nothing. Luke gave up. He had no idea how to make the Inquisitors see that he wasn’t… whatever they thought he was. That he wasn’t going to hurt them, or manipulate them, or whatever it was they were afraid of. They never seemed to believe what he _said,_ somewhere along the line they just reinterpreted his words into whatever they expected to hear. It was so _frustrating,_ but at the same time it made him feel terrible for what they’d gone through to make them this way. 

“Lord…” It was the Fourth Sister. She didn’t meet his eyes. “I’d… I’d just like to get it over with.” Then, at his look of confusion, she added, “Please.”

“Get what over with?” 

She clenched her jaw and something - a hint of yellow? - flashed in her eyes. “If you’re going to kill me just do it, don’t play games!” she snapped. “And don’t pretend you won’t after _that._ ”

She was being serious. Luke stared at her, shocked. She had tensed up, bracing for pain, for punishment. What had he done to make her think this? He felt he ought to be able to figure it out, but his thoughts refused to do more than stall like a faulty speeder. 

“I’m not going to kill you,” he said, unable to think of anything else. 

“Yes you are! You are! I… I don’t care if I’m speaking out of turn or if you have to punish me for doing so first but please, I can’t take it if you let me think I’m safe! If you… If you make me wait for it!” Her eyes were tight closed now, and she was practically vibrating with stress and fear. 

“No, listen,” Luke said, alarmed. “I am _not _going to kill you. Not now, not ever.” He tried to project his sincerity into the Force. “I’m not Darth Sidious. I’m not whoever trained you on Mustafar. I’m not a Sith!”__

__Her eyes opened slightly. “You’re Darth Vader’s son,” she pointed out. “You’re the new Apprentice. _Sith_ Apprentice. That’s… how it works.”_ _

__“Yes I’m his son, but I’m not his Apprentice,” Luke said, trying to explain. “And I’m not a Jedi either. I’m… something different.”_ _

__“How can you expect me to believe that!”_ _

__Luke paused. “I’m not going to kill you,” he said again deliberately. “And I’m going to keep on not killing you _until_ you believe that.”_ _

__The Fourth Sister stared at him. Luke wasn’t sure he had managed to get through to her, but he had managed to end the argument at least. He wanted to do more… but he could feel it wasn’t the place or the time._ _

__“Now,” he said, “let’s get going.”_ _

__\----_ _

__**1 ABY - ISD- _Vigilance_ , over Tatooine, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories** _ _

__Aboard the ISD- _Vigilance_ , part of the small fleet of six ships orbiting Tatooine, Darth Vader waited upon the Hutt’s revenge. He was certain that it would be upon them soon, for he had made sure that knowledge of Jabba’s death would spread far and quickly. The Hutt Clans could not afford to lose face by permitting the slaughter of one of their own to go unpunished for long. Vader had some idea of the forces that could be brought to bear against him, and how rapidly the Hutts could muster them. Criminals that they were, they had none of the discipline of the Imperial Army and Navy and thus it would naturally take them longer to pull their rag-tag fleet together. He was therefore unconcerned by the lack of activity thus far. _ _

__The satisfaction that killing Jabba Desilijic Tiure had given him could not be described in mere words. From the moment Vader had called the Dark Side to him and begun to crush that slug as the creature had long deserved he had been aware of a great weight lifting from his shoulders. A weight he had borne so long he had no longer been aware of it. He had remembered the promise he had once made long ago, a promise to his people which had been the one and only goal for his life - and which he had forgotten. Or rather say, which the Jedi had made him forget. One more crime to lay at their feet, although they had long since paid the price._ _

__Jabba had been the linchpin for criminal activities on Tatooine. Smugglers, slavers, thieves, and all their ilk had paid their tithes to him, bowed to him. Now he was dead and gone, as were the majority of his court which had comprised the upper echelons of his organisation, such individuals had scattered or found ways to lie very low. They feared the same fate, as well they ought. In return those ordinary people who had so long lived in fear of Jabba’s thugs could now live their lives in peace._ _

__There had been… parties._ _

__As to the slaves themselves, now free-folk all… they were less open in their celebrations. It was only natural, given how well they had learned the value of caution and discretion. They doubted his motives, as Oola - the dancer from the palace - had. Vader could not blame them. Too long had he allowed himself to be distracted from what he _ought_ to have been doing. With the Jedi he had told himself ‘once he was a Knight’, then ‘once he was a Master’, then ‘once he was on the Council and the war was over…’ Naught but platitudes to himself to cover the fact that he had known deep down - the Jedi would never do anything to help his people. They had not even permitted him to speak of his past. Even if he had become a trusted member of the Council his one voice would never had been enough… _ _

__And then he had been given power, from the Dark Side. But that had not availed him any. He had… forgotten. There had been a long time when all had seemed hopeless, when all actions had been without any point to them. He had been a weapon in his Master’s hands, a puppet to do whatever was commanded. He had become _keekta-du_. One who has forgotten his origins. Something which shamed him, but he had done so much worthy of shame what was one more thing to add to the pile?_ _

__No more. No longer._ _

__The plans for the scanner had long been in his head. Vader had begun working on it even back in Watto’s junkyard, and the knowledge of it had gone with him to the Temple when he’d left. For the last few decades it had existed only _in potentia_ , but once he had made the decision to return to Tatooine, to free the slaves, building it had simply been the logical next step. _Vigilance_ had enough spare parts in maintenance to construct a half-dozen of the devices, and those along with the plans had been sent down to the planet’s surface after he had dealt with Jabba. _ _

__Transmitters and their twinned explosives were being removed even now._ _

__Now there was little still to do but wait._ _

__Vader did so alone. Luke had been quite convincing in his arguments for remaining on the planet’s surface. It was of course necessary to search for the Arkanii temple and whatever secrets it might or might not hold, and while time was not strictly of the essence, nor was it wise to wait around when it came to such an important matter. Equally someone had to be with the fleet for when the Hutts came. Separation was thus the obvious choice - but that did not mean Vader had to like it._ _

__At least his son had the Inquisitors with him - and they were all too frightened of him to act to cause him harm. He also had his sister, and was building a relationship with her that Vader had no right to disrupt by his presence. Better to allow them this space then, on a planet where there was little that could harm _them_. _ _

__“Lord Vader.” Rear-Admiral Sloane interrupted his thoughts. “We have just received a courier from Admiral Piett. A combined fleet has begun an attack on Arkanis, made up of Imperial and Hutt Clan elements. He requests our support.”_ _

__For a moment Vader was torn - Luke and Leia were still on Tatooine - but there was no choice and they were as safe as they could be there. “Set course,” he commanded. “And set crew to battle stations. Have all power set to forward shields; we will be emerging into pitched battle.” A tactic not without its risks - collisions between capital ships were generally fatal for both parties - but those with smaller vessels could generally be dealt with by over-powering shields at the moment of re-entry._ _

__Sloane nodded sharpy. “As you command sir.”_ _

__\----_ _

__**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor _, Arkanis, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories__** ____ _ _

____Ships on both sides of the battlefield were burning. _Executor’s_ shields had taken a pummelling that was still ongoing, but she had been built to endure. Her fire had brought down a number of the Imperial-II Destroyers, and prevented any great force from making planetfall. It had been impossible to stop every landing craft, but Piett was unconcerned about those which had made it through. Arkanis was an Academy planet; it did not lack for defences. Needa and Branta’s formations were in amongst the enemy, the main bodies of both fleets had closed in, and it was little more than a slugging match at this point. _ _ _ _

____It was still too early for Piett to make any statements about victory, even to himself. There had been no definitive turning points, no clever maneuvers going uncountered from either side. The two fleets were surprisingly well matched. In honesty Piett had been expecting the Emperor’s force to come in greater numbers with intent to overwhelm and strike the kind of blow which would put their fledgling New Empire out of commission once and for all. It meant something that Palpatine hadn’t been able to do that, even with Hutt Clan aid. It meant he simply wasn’t able to._ _ _ _

____There was civil war across the galaxy - they had already known that. But this was proof that the fighting was even more widespread and significant than anyone had hoped - anyone save perhaps Lord Vader himself, who was architect of all this. Palpatine had no more ships to send, not all at once, not that he could spare without losing much more than he stood to gain. Perhaps they had the Rebel Alliance to thank for that as well, at least in part._ _ _ _

____“Order _Typhoon_ and _Warhead_ to close in on the right hand flank,” Piett ordered, spotting a potential opportunity beginning to show itself. Ship designations - both theirs and the enemies - flickered across his tactical readout. “Focus fire on _Justicar;_ her shielding is minutes from failing.”_ _ _ _

____The centre of the Emperor’s formation still held, anchored by the weight of those powerful Imperial-IIs, too many remaining despite _Executor’s_ sustained barrage. Unlike their flagship’s previous engagements, _Executor_ was not attacking with the element of surprise, and thus the massive power output of her star-strong engines had to be split between the dozens of shield generators that protected her nineteen kilometer length as well as her armaments. She was still a capital ship-killer, but not with her hitherto predatory swiftness. _ _ _ _

____“Sir!” This from a junior lieutenant in the left bridge-pit. “Signals emerging from hyperspace!” As she spoke Piett saw what their instruments had picked up. Six Star Destroyers slid into realspace to aft of the remaining Deuces. Piett smiled; a thin-lipped smirk of satisfaction. Lord Vader had received his message. Few other commanders would risk re-entry so very close to a battle._ _ _ _

____Would this additional strength be sufficient to turn the tide? Piett rather thought it would. A poor showing indeed from the Emperor. He had feared much worse, but it was pleasing to be proven right about one’s own abilities and the prowess of their forces._ _ _ _

____\----_ _ _ _

____The battle had continued for hours, even after Darth Vader’s reinforcements had arrived. Eventually the Emperor’s fleet had been broken, the criminal sorts mustered by the Hutts fleeing first when their fear of death overcame their fear of failing the Clans, and that had been enough to sap the morale of the Imperials that remained. Soon they too had been on the run, leaving behind a small asteroid field of dead fighters, the smouldering wrecks of cruisers and capital ships, and those vessels whose hyperdrives had been too damaged to flee. Those remainders had chosen either to keep fighting until they were truly destroyed, to surrender, or to evacuate. Two particularly brave Captains had made an attempt to burn out their impulse engines in last-ditch suicide charges at _Executor_ , but her guns had cut them apart into debris that glanced from her shields without much damage to show for it. _ _ _ _

____The defending forces had taken their own losses, of course. Many good ships, crewed with good people, had perished. Fighting would continue on Arkanis itself for some time, but the landed stormtroopers knew there was no retreat or victory for them, only the choice between surrender or making ‘Vader’s turncoats’ pay dearly to kill them. Piett could respect that. He respected the Captains of all those ships _Executor_ had killed. Yet this was war, and so he felt no sorrow for them. They had died with honour. That was all a soldier could ask for when victory was not what fate dealt them. _ _ _ _

____Observing what remained of the battlefield while he waited for Vader’s shuttle to bring him over from _Vigilance_ was losing its luster. Piett turned and made his way to one of the briefing rooms aft of the bridge, where he activated one of the holotables. As a matter of routine, Imperial ships made detailed recordings of battlefield data for subsequent analysis, and these had been sent over to _Executor_ as the flagship of the fleet. Piett spent some time reviewing the files and arranging them to his satisfaction before the table’s comm buzzed. _ _ _ _

____“Lord Vader has arrived on board,” the ensign on the other end of the line informed him._ _ _ _

____“Very well,” Piett replied. He had come to know Vader well enough by now to be aware that his commander had no love for pomp and circumstance, and would not have required his presence - or indeed that of the traditional honour guard of stormtroopers - to greet him in the hanger. Efficiency was more important to him. “Inform Lord Vader of my location.” Vader would probably want to discuss the battle immediately._ _ _ _

____Indeed as he had expected, it was not long afterwards that the door slid open to admit Darth Vader. He nodded amiably to Piett._ _ _ _

____“Was your trip to Tatooine fruitful, my lord?” Piett asked. “It certainly appears to have had the desired effect on the Hutts.”_ _ _ _

____“Indeed,” Vader replied. Piett found his rumbling baritone a comfort - an idea that would have been entirely alien not so long ago. It had not actually been all that long since he took command of _Executor_ , but Piett’s fear of strangulation as punishment for the slightest mistake had gradually been eroded away as he came to better understand the man he had betrayed the Emperor for. He had too much respect for Vader now to be afraid of him - and indeed in his absence Piett had found himself genuinely missing him. It was unusually sentimental of him. _ _ _ _

____“Were there any parts of the engagement you feel particularly in need of analysis?” Piett asked, gesturing to the holotable. “I can of course play the part prior to your arrival first.”_ _ _ _

____“That would be wise,” Vader remarked. “However there is also another matter I require your opinion about. It is regarding my… son.”_ _ _ _

____Piett did not miss the awkward edge to Vader’s tone, and he believed he understood the reason for it. Vader had always been reticent on that subject. Part of it must simply be a prudent amount of caution - he had kept his son a secret for this long in order to keep him safe. However he had revealed the boy’s existence - and his intentions for him - to the Rebel Alliance before he had to his own men. That was troubling. Piett had a healthy respect for Luke Skywalker having seen him in action against the Inquisitors, but until the boy started stepping into a true leadership role he found himself unable to truly judge whether he was worthy of all that Darth Vader would have him do._ _ _ _

____“I will endeavour to give my honest opinion,” he replied._ _ _ _

____“I wish to announce his existence to the galaxy,” Vader said. “It was not prudent to do so before we had established our own territory. Now however the Empire must come to appreciate the one who will be its new ruler.”_ _ _ _

____“And how does your son feel about that?”_ _ _ _

____Vader took a moment before answering. “He is proving stubborn about that point,” he admitted eventually. “He does not appreciate the lack of other candidates.”_ _ _ _

____Piett had never asked why Vader didn’t want to take up the position for himself - and he couldn’t manage to find the daring to ask now either. If Vader simply didn’t want the job then he supposed that was fair enough, but if so why foist it off on Luke? It sounded like _he_ was less than keen as well. It was a state of affairs that didn’t bode well. Yet Vader was right - who else? The ranks of the New Empire were so far made up entirely of the military - they had no politicians amongst their number. None of them had that kind of experience, unless one counted the internal politics of the military itself - which he did not. _ _ _ _

____“I suppose the galaxy needs to see him as they have seen you, or the Emperor,” Piett said slowly. “As a capable leader. Someone who can lead an army, and who can manage in times of peace as well.”_ _ _ _

____Vader’s vocoder made a strange noise - Piett interpreted it as something vaguely scoffing. “Propaganda.”_ _ _ _

____Piett shrugged. “That may be another name for it sir. Still, it is effective, and can be based in truth.”_ _ _ _

____“We will arrange something once Luke returns from Tatooine,” Vader said. “We can move on to viewing the battle re-simulation now.”_ _ _ _

____Piett activated the display, relieved to be back on familiar ground. Propaganda was COMPNOR’s business, not something he had ever concerned himself with. Surely there would be someone on board _Executor_ who had some experience with its creation? He would have to find them before Vader’s son finished his business elsewhere. _ _ _ _

____\----_ _ _ _

____**1 ABY - Ryloth, Gaulus Sector, Outer Rim Territories** _ _ _ _

____“It appears your new role suits you,” Pellaeon said, entering Governor Syndulla’s office. He had done his research on Cham Syndulla not long after coming to Ryloth, and so it had seemed appropriate to him to return the property which had once been the man’s former home. In truth it was not even changing the role the building had had in the interim - it remained the Governor’s headquarters after all. Syndulla had not gone so far as to thank him for it - but he had no reason to when Pellaeon was just returning stolen property. If nothing else, Gilad hoped it served as further evidence that his intentions for Ryloth were noble ones._ _ _ _

____“I am so glad you think so,” Cham replied, with a heavy tinge of sarcasm. “I am less glad of late with your fellow humans.”_ _ _ _

____Pellaeon knew what he was talking about. Much as he’d predicted, appointing Cham Syndulla as the new Governor had not been a popular decision with the planet’s ex-Imperial population - or even amongst his own soldiers, disappointing as it was to admit that. There had not been outright rioting, but the undercurrent was there. Rumours, murmurings, a general atmosphere with no particular ringleaders or demagogues to pin down as inciting it. Just… dissatisfaction._ _ _ _

____“I can only apologise for old prejudices,” he said, taking a seat opposite Cham. “You have my word that any unlawful troublemakers will be dealt with. We have come this far - I hope - in making reparations for what the Empire under Palpatine did to your world…”_ _ _ _

____“Reparations,” Cham said, interrupting him. “An interesting choice of words. Ever since coming to this planet the Empire has tried to bleed Ryloth dry. Mining for spice with no concern for our native ecosystems, enslaving my people and profiting from our labour and lives - not to mention those who have been torn away from their families and shipped across the galaxy! And you congratulate yourself on basic decency. On barely starting to right wrongs _you_ had a hand in - not personally yes I know, but as part of the system that was your Empire. Is that reparations? Do you truly believe that was enough?”_ _ _ _

____Pellaeon could not meet the Twi’lek’s eyes. Yes, he was responsible; he’d thought that enough himself. If Vader hadn’t opened his eyes to this he never would have acted to change anything. He hadn’t known there was anything to change - but his ignorance was a poor excuse._ _ _ _

____“I know it is not enough,” he said quietly. “But I am not sure what else I can do.”_ _ _ _

____Cham scoffed. “What you’ve done is more than I would have expected from an Imperial anyway,” he said dismissively. “But you expect me to be thankful for giving me what was mine by right - making me Governor, so _generously_ returning my family’s house to me. These were things I had been fighting to take - and if you had been nothing but the same again, I would have taken them despite you. Don’t forget I didn’t come to you looking for handouts, or to work with your ‘New Empire’. I came to kill you - _you_ persuaded me not to. _You_ asked for _my_ help, even if it was to make things right.”_ _ _ _

____“And my arguments had merit, then and now,” Gilad reminded him. Sweat was trickling down his back - but that was more than half guilt. If he didn’t _know_ he was in the wrong he would have felt confident enough in himself to argue back. Self-doubt did not survive military service. _ _ _ _

____“You have freed my people here on Ryloth,” Cham said, “but that doesn’t bring back our siblings lost to the slave trade. You have the Imperial records. Some Twi’leks will have been taken to worlds your master now controls. I want you to find them and bring them back to Ryloth - if they want to come. There are slaves from other planets here as well - they deserve to be returned to their families just as much. And as for those who remain in shackles elsewhere… by your own words you must fight to free them!”_ _ _ _

____“We will!” Pellaeon replied, surprised by the force of his own words. “This is something that matters greatly to Darth Vader.”_ _ _ _

____“One must wonder why,” Cham said. “Given it never seemed to bother him until now.”_ _ _ _

____“That much I can’t answer,” Gilad replied. “I don’t know what, exactly, was the last straw for him. The reason he decided _now_ to turn against the Emperor. All I _do_ know is that he meant every word he said during his broadcast, and every command he has given about the running of the worlds in his New Empire as well. I suspect the only person who would truly know what’s in his mind - the only one he would tell - would be his son. But…”_ _ _ _

____“Vader’s son?” Cham asked, suddenly leaning forward in his seat. “You never mentioned _that_ before now.”_ _ _ _

____“I suppose it never came up,” Gilad replied, nonplussed. “I admit it was a surprise to learn about him, but it just proves Vader is a man inside that suit of his - and of course he must have had a life before he took on that name.”_ _ _ _

____“A better question to ask would be why no-one in the galaxy has heard about this son before now,” Cham said._ _ _ _

____“I believe they were only recently reunited. More than that I don’t know, save the boy’s name - he was introduced to us as Luke.”_ _ _ _

____“Luke Vader?” Cham asked, looking skeptical._ _ _ _

____“His last name - or whatever name he had been using up until then - wasn’t mentioned.” Pellaeon shrugged. “I didn’t remain with the fleet long enough to hear him referred to by any other names.”_ _ _ _

____“Still, it’s curious,” Cham said. “I will have to think about that. In any case, and to return to the matter we were discussing, I hope I can rely on you to keep your word. That you will continue to help me help Ryloth.”_ _ _ _

____Gilad nodded. “Of course.”_ _ _ _


	49. Chapter 49

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kix finds it's still possible to be shocked by the Emperor's deeds, Luke tries to fix an unintended consequence, and Hera is feeling homesick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings for body horror/medical malpractise.

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis system, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

_Executor’s_ shields had held well during the battle over Arkanis, but even so there had been injuries to the personnel that manned her. Kix had offered his services in their treatment, but he had been rebuffed. It was the same prejudices from the Clone Wars, or at least he felt so. No-one had said it in so many words but he could tell by the way the medical staff looked at him. Looked down on him. As though he hadn’t spent his entire adult life on battlefields treating the wounded. Just because his education had been flash-learned rather than studied at one of their fancy schools…

He didn’t try and fight them on it. It wouldn’t get him anywhere, and it would take up time that should be spent treating the wounded. He did have patients of his own anyway, even if they weren’t taking up that much of his time at the moment. 

His _vode_ were recovering well from the events on the HoloNet station. Generally they seemed to be coming to terms with it as well - at least, all of them except Dogma. Dogma worried Kix. He was afraid of what his _vod_ might do, and that he wouldn’t be able to see it coming if and when it did. He was too quiet, too withdrawn. Perhaps a mind-healer would be able to help him but Kix certainly wasn’t that, and he was bone-deep certain Dogma would refuse to talk to anyone who wasn’t a clone. Not that he was exactly talkative with them. From a physical point of view however, most of the clones were reaching the end of their rehabilitation. The long and busy days Kix had been having had died away. 

There was one patient who still needed his attention however, and as luck might have it, that patient had just come back on board. Lord Vader’s agent, Doctor Aphra, had managed to slice the medical files at long last and although Kix had already known much of what they contained it was something different to read them laid out like that, clinical, cold and precise. He hadn’t _needed_ the evidence that so much of his General’s poor care had been intentional, designed for pain and control, but he had it now all the same. It was a long list of twenty years of horror. He would have to discuss it with Vader of course but he already knew how the man was going to react; with that same disturbing nonchalance that said he saw nothing wrong with what he’d been forced to go through. 

Kix couldn’t help his anger on Vader’s behalf, but it wasn’t as though it did anyone any good either. It wasn’t possible to hate the Emperor more than he did. Emotions had no place in his General’s treatment anyway - at least not _his_ emotions. Vader could feel any way he wanted about it, even if Kix - and Luke as well - found those reactions disturbing at times. 

If Kix looked at things clinically, he could at least see that they’d gone a long way to fixing things with what they had already done. The earliest parts of the records came from right after Vader’s initial injuries on Mustafar - at the hands of his _aruetyc vod_ Kenobi no less. It explained the crudeness of his prostheses and their attachments, and tried to justify it as well with some Sith-religious nerf-shit. Which was also the so-called explanation for why there had been no attempt to upgrade, at least not until Kix himself got involved. Had any of the doctors authorised to read all this over the years really believed those excuses? Or had they known they were excuses but simply not cared?

Well the cybernetics were dealt with, and even if Vader had pushed hard through any kind of healing and rehab period he hadn’t appeared to suffer any ill effects from doing so, damn his stubbornness. That was merely the start of the records though and only a few of the horrific injuries he’d suffered which had led to him ending up in a life-support suit. Third degree burns over almost all of his body - that alone should have killed him and Kix could only suppose it must have been the Force itself - and that same stubbornness - that had kept him alive. They’d barely bothered to treat that either - wrapped him straight into synthskin and stuffed him into the suit - and then whoever had written these records had the gall to act surprised that the results had been so poor. 

Necrosis, debridements, more synthskin… Kix was surprised to find that Vader _had_ been given bacta baths in the past, except that when he read further the stuff in them could hardly be called bacta. Attenuated, dilute cultures he might have expected from a back-alley surgery on an Outer Rim Hutt world! He could follow the train of thought through the notes leading to the decision - proper bacta would have too positive an effect for what the Emperor wanted, but they needed _something_ to get the synthskin to stick and bond at least a little. Of course there had been no effect on the heavy scarring in his lungs - nothing had been done about that until the bath Luke and Kix had persuaded him into. 

The worst horror from that initial record - the one Kix hadn’t known about, the one that left him feeling sick to his stomach - was the modifications Sidious had ordered. The surgeries that _weren’t_ necessary, that were only part of the vision the Emperor had had for his favourite weapon. Kix had never really realised that Vader was a good five or six inches taller than General Skywalker had been. Kix might have been part of the 501st but in the tumultuous time at the end of the Clone Wars he’d ended up transferred to another legion and it had been a few years until Vader found him and had him brought back. Long enough to forget. To put any discrepancies down to a fault in his own memory. But here was grisly proof - the prosthetic limbs were longer, and a number of Vader’s vertebrae including several in his neck had been replaced with cybernetic ones to add inches to his torso and abdomen. There was no medical need for this - it was image and it was control. The specs for the cervical vertebrae made that much clear. The organic spinal cord was bridged by cybernetics and those cybernetics were hooked into a remote override. Anyone who had the remote could paralyse Vader immediately, if they wanted to. 

Kix had to do something about that. It couldn’t be allowed to continue. It was monstrous slavery - and too close to the horror that had been buried in the head of every clone up until recently. 

Worse, it wasn’t the only mechanism of control inside his General’s body. Whoever had been in charge of the initial process - the name Cylo came up often but meant nothing to Kix - had been keener about cybernetics than there was any need to be. There had been some damage to Vader’s internal organs as well as his external burns, but nothing so severe as to require the artificial organs that had been implanted. Those were about as crude as the prosthetics - which was to say they had no right being inside a living being. 

He had nearly missed the last thing. It had been mentioned in passing - an incidental finding - something that had been there for some time although the records did not say how long. A slave transmitter. Hutt make, the kind hooked up to a small but powerful bomb. It was inactive, but just like the implant in Vader’s neck, if someone had the codes for it they could activate it at any time. 

The Emperor hadn’t put it there. That left few possibilities. Kix had long ago had his faith in the Jedi shattered even if he was struggling to come to terms with how the evidence for their betrayal had been implanted in him by something akin to mind-control. Even before the recent revelations however he would never have thought them the type to put a slave transmitter into one of their own. So what did that leave? Only that it must have come from before Vader had become a Jedi. 

He didn’t know where his General had been born. Kix had assumed he’d been taken from his family as a babe like all the other Jedi but perhaps not. If he’d come from the Outer Rim, where the infrastructure that identified Force-strong children wasn’t in place… Had the Jedi bought him? Purchased him from his owner, deactivated the tracker and then… never thought to take it out? 

No other possibility he could think of seemed to make any sense. 

How Vader would react to the fact that he knew all this he couldn’t be sure. And Kix didn’t even know how much of it he could fix - how much of it _could_ be fixed, apart from what they’d already done. He was no long-neck but he knew some of what they did, knew Jedi didn’t take well to any kind of cloning process. Even if he’d had access to Spartii cylinders or Kaminoan tech, it might not be possible to grow organs to replace the ones the Emperor had removed. 

He would have to think about this. He would have to _talk_ about this, with Vader and with Luke. And most importantly of all, he would have to keep a handle on how frakking angry he felt about all of it.

\----

**1 ABY - Tatooine, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

The Tatooine temple turned out to be hiding a room full of records much like the temple on Arkanis. Luke sighed to look at it all, thinking of how long it had taken him, Leia and Ezra to go through the first lot, skimming for anything that might be of use. The good feeling he had been having about this temple in general waned a little - but perhaps that was the Force trying to tell him something. Perhaps it wasn’t about what he would find in these files, but about the memories the temple guardian had given him.

“Let’s get this lot back to the shuttle,” he told the Inquisitors, and picked up a stack of stack of datapads himself.

It took a couple of hours to empty everything out and strap it down in the shuttle’s cargo hold. Time enough for Luke to think. He kept coming back to the Inquisitors and what they thought about him. How scared of him they were. He supposed they’d had plenty of reason to think that he was a Sith, the way he’d acted under the influence of the Dark Side and given certain comments his father had made. Just saying that he wasn’t a Sith wasn’t going to cut it, but at least he knew now what kind of misconception he was trying to correct. That was a place to start wasn’t it? Yet try as he might he couldn’t think of any way to convince them of the truth other than what he had said to Fourth Sister – and that hadn't worked all that well.

Given everything that had happened, it was no wonder the flight back to Jabba’s Palace was an awkward one. Luke took refuge in the cockpit again with Leia.

“Do all your field-trips end like this?” Leia asked him. It was a serious question, not forced levity.

“Recently, yes,” Luke replied. They were out of the canyon now and the flying was easy enough that he wasn’t afraid of being distracted. “This was… a bit more so than usual.”

“My head feels so full,” Leia mused, more than half to herself. “Everything’s waiting under the surface. Lurking, maybe.”

“I feel it too. It’s important. You can sense it, can’t you?”

Leia nodded. “The Force wants us to find what we're looking for. It wants us to kill the Emperor.” She sounded satisfied at that.

“If the answer is in the memories we've been given then we need to meditate on them,” Luke suggested. “When we've worked together in the past we've gotten pretty good results – we should try that again and see where it gets us.”

“Fair enough.” He exchanged a glance with Leia. She looked for a moment as though she was going to say something else – it was visible just behind her eyes, as well as in the Force with a kind of hesitant and complicated emotion... but it died before it made it into words. Luke sensed a great weariness from his sister, but that was all.

They didn't say much else to each other for the rest of the flight back. After the events of the temple, quiet just seemed more comfortable.

\----

Vader had left with the fleet a few hours after their shuttle had left for the temple, Luke found out once they were all back. They didn't have any news from him just yet, but Luke wasn't too worried. If there had been something to be worried about, he would have sensed something, but the Force had been quiet on the matter of his father. Little had changed in the palace itself, although the guards and former members of Jabba's court weren't around anymore. Jabba's own slaves were running things now, just as they ought to be, and from what Luke understood the Underground would be using it as a base of operations to work against slavery across the sector going forward – with the New Empire's full support, of course.

The Inquisitors had nearly run from his presence as soon as they had been dismissed. They had taken some rooms of their own and seemed to be hiding in them now, no doubt talking about him amongst themselves and trying to work out what sort of trick he was trying to pull. Luke felt the sadness as an uncomfortable weight in the pit of his stomach just thinking about it. He felt powerless to do much where they were concerned – and for now anyway, he and Leia had some other things to distract themselves with.

Jabba's Palace was not an ideal place for meditation. The Hutt had not been Force-sensitive, but he had still been living there long enough to put his psychic stamp on the building and its surroundings, made all the worse by the legacy of pain and terror that only added to Jabba's slimy darkness. There had been little here of any merit for a number of years. If Luke had been trying to channel the Dark Side he could see how the environment might have helped that, but as it was he could only hope the Light – whether his own flavour or that of Leia's – could burn some of the unpleasantness away. They didn't try straight away – Luke felt too mentally exhausted for that. The next day though he awoke refreshed and eager to begin.

Luke spent some time searching for the least Dark place in the palace. The best site he could find was the slave's quarters, which made a kind of sense. It felt right to reach for the Force here though. He and Leia were the freeborn children of a slave. Tatooine mythology – or the version he knew which was primarily the mythology of its slaves – had something of the Arkanii in its roots. A request for permission was easily granted, so he reached through their link in the Force and asked his sister to meet him there.

Almost the first thing Leia said when she entered was; “This place... it doesn't seem as dark as the rest.”

Luke nodded – of course she would notice. “It's as good a place as we're going to get,” he said.

“Are you sure it can't wait? Tomorrow we could head out to one of the settlements...”

“I'm not sure I would trust myself with sleep before sorting this out in my head,” Luke replied, not keen on the idea.

Leia frowned, but said, “I do know what you mean. This is something I've never come across before, and nor have you. It's unpredictable, and I don't like unpredictable things.”

“Normally I'd be bothered less,” Luke said. “But after what happened in the temple itself, I'm not sure the guardian even understood itself what it was doing to us.”

Leia nodded. “So you were thinking of doing something like that time before. It certainly got results then.” She went into the centre of the room, where the sandstone floor was covered by a thin rug patterned with symbols of the sun and of the three moons, and sat down in a posture of meditation. Luke went to join her, brushing his hand over the rug as he sat. He realised he was smiling faintly when Leia gave him a slightly odd look.

“I grew up on this planet,” he said as explanation. “Not everything about it was harsh.”

Leia took a few measured breaths. “Okay,” she said. “I'm ready.”

Luke couldn't be sure, but it felt almost easier this time. He knew he and Leia disagreed about a lot of things, philosophy of the Force included, but that didn't seem to have any effect on this. He felt Leia as a bright light in the Force, a powerful yet somehow almost cold star waxing and waning like the beating of a heart. She had mostly given up the camouflage-disguise she had been using for most of her life, and now there was no mistaking her presence. Luke reached out, and felt her reaching too. They fell into each other and became that sense of themselves as _Luke-and-Leia_ , a single unit.

The gifted memories were lying just under the surface. They hadn't been able to see them before, which was surprising because they were so obvious. The guardian had not known how to be gentle or subtle, but had shoved them into their heads in simple desperation. There was little order in them, more guided and grouped by emotion. Strong emotions ruled the out-most memories, and they could perceive others, less coloured, further in.

Understanding the information they contained would come when the memories were assimilated, recalled as though they were there own – this came as an almost instinctual understanding, washed towards them by the Force whose energies they were swimming in. This could not be a swift process, since each fragment would have to be experienced as though it had happened to them – but the rewards could be great. And in the Force, time did not matter in the way it did usually.

Something else in the Force was calling their attention. _Luke-and-Leia_ turned their minds from the examination of their own selves and followed.

They dropped into a memory. Around them was a landscape on fire, although the ground they stood upon was solid. It had a sulphurous heat and stench that the part of them that was Luke recognised, although they had to think a moment to work out from where. Those long-ago visions on Vrogas Vas. The images Luke had been shown – out of order and seemingly from the Force itself – of his mother and father. Of Mustafar.

The memory blurred and reformed. They were in the same place, but this time there were two people circling each other on the hot stone in front of them. One was a tall human they did not recognise. The other was Fourth Sister. She looked young, a mere scrap of a girl, thin with wiry muscle. She wasn't wearing much, just simple workout clothing that left most of her skin bare.

“Again,” the human said, twirling a long stick of some kind in the air. It was made of some kind of metal, with the handle wrapped up for better grip. Fourth Sister had one too. When she moved to attack, it became clear these were supposed to represent lightsabers, although the weight of them would be all wrong...

The pair exchanged blows for a minute, then Fourth Sister made a misstep and the human landed a heavy hit, not bothering to pull the blow. Fourth Sister winced, letting her guard down even more, and had her feet swept from under her. Where her bare skin touched the scorching hot ground, there was an audible sizzle.

The memory blurred around them again. Why were they seeing this? It didn't feel like a vision...

_Luke-and-Leia_ pulled back, away from the images, and became aware they were looking into Fourth Sister's own head. Her natural barriers and the ones that she had built up with the use of the Force were nowhere to be seen. It made no sense. Fourth Sister would never have dropped these of her own accord. They searched around for any sign of the shields that should have kept them out, but there was nothing.

With sudden suspicion, they found the other Inquisitors in the Force – easy enough to locate them when you knew what to look for. Focusing in on the ones who had accompanied Luke to the Tatooine temple they saw the same thing, repeated. Barriers gone. Memories and thoughts open to the world.

It was enough to throw them out of meditation. _Luke-and-Leia_ became Luke and Leia again. Luke sat blinking at his sister, not sure how to react to what they had seen. They had found answers of a sort, but something far more troubling as well.

\----

Luke couldn't simply ignore what he'd seen in the Inquisitor's minds. He'd thought he had stopped the temple guardian before it had done any damage, but it was clear that he'd been wrong about that. Their mental shields were in tatters, and he and Leia had been able to wander right in. It was more than just the invasion of privacy – he was certain none of them would have wanted their memories to be seen by anyone, particularly those _kinds_ of memories. Perhaps he might understand them a little better by seeing what they had experienced during their training, but that wasn't right either; getting that understanding by unethical means. He knew enough to guess at more anyway.

Yet how could it be fixed? Was it something that _he_ could help with, or was it something that would get better with time? Luke might have learned a lot about the Force in recent months, but he was very mindful of just how much remained a mystery to him. He was not without resources however. He had Alkamar's holocron, and she had never steered him wrong before.

He couldn't ask Leia to help with this. She regarded the Inquisitors with the same kind of disdain she felt for Vader. Besides, Luke didn't think she had seen him using the Dark Side yet – at least not in the controlled way he was capable of now rather than that horrible mistake on the bridge of _Executor_. They would need to talk about that – but now wasn't the time.

Luke called on the Force, Light and Dark, and felt the holocron respond. Alkamar's ghostly image appeared before him.

“Greetings again,” she said, smiling. “Did your journey to the temple bear fruit?”

Luke hesitated. “Yes,” he said. “The way it did so was... complicated.”

“Ask and I will advise as best I can,” she said, “although much may have changed since I last walked those stones.”

Luke let out a short, uncomfortable laugh. “I'm sure this wasn't around when you were there.” He did his best to explain the Force-creature which had attacked them, the memories it had given him, and what it had done to the Inquisitors. She looked very grave when he was done.

“Success at a great cost,” she said. “It is clear you want to help. You have a good heart Luke, but do you think they will thank you for this if you do it?”

That made him pause. “I don't know,” he replied. “I know they won't trust my motives. They'll come up with the worst interpretation possible for anything I do, and I don't know how to stop them doing it. This is my fault though. I didn't _need_ to take them to the temple with me. I did it so they could get to know me – if they had stayed here they would all be fine.”

“You did not know this was a potential consequence,” Alkamar pointed out. “Don't be too hard on yourself. However this is all besides your original question - can you do anything to heal them. Mental healing is not an easy discipline. So much can go wrong, even though there is much that can also be eased or put right. It is never a matter of exerting your own opinions on how things should be, but working with the expectations and knowledge of those you seek to help. Learning these techniques will not be easy.”

“If they'll accept my help.”

“You can but offer.”

Luke nodded. “Then show me what I can do.”

\----

Fourth Sister had been having nightmares since coming back from the ancient temple. At first she had thought it was just because of how pathetic she had been facing that monster, or because she was still afraid of what Luke had secretly planned for her as punishment, but after a few nights had passed and the memories were still forcing their way into her sleep she had to admit to herself that it was something else. That something was genuinely wrong. 

Even during the day she’d been feeling off. She felt somehow rubbed raw, open to the world. She was trying to keep her mind closed and protected, as she’d always been taught, but something about it wasn’t… wasn’t… It was hard to think about. Her head ached whenever she tried. Migranous blooms bursting behind her eyes. 

She didn’t work out how bad it _really_ was until she tried to find out if the others were being affected this way as well. None of the Inquisitors usually tried to look into each other’s minds - not because they didn’t think it could be helpful in the constant battle for position within the Inquisitorius, but because to do so was to declare an open hostility that could only end in violence. She did so _now_ only because she was gambling they were all still useful enough to Luke that he wouldn’t want them fighting. What she found though… Of those of them that had travelled to the temple, who had been attacked by that beast… their shields were ragged. Barely there. Easy to slip through. The reason it felt so strange to try and raise her defences was because they hardly existed. 

Was this what the Apprentice had devised? This _nightmare_? Had he led them there knowing what would happen, knowing it would give him a direct line into their heads? Had it been a trap all along?

There was no way of knowing, and with that constant facade of false-friendship Luke persisted in maintaining he was sure to act concerned about it when he found out - or rather when he found out that _they_ knew about it, since he’d likely had a hand in making it happen. In some ways it was almost worse than if he’d been more straightforward, like his father. 

Fourth Sister wondered if she ought to approach some of the others about this. Not those who weren’t affected - revealing that kind of weakness was rank foolishness - but perhaps if they worked together they could find some way to fix it. It would be a long shot. Any alliance would be an uneasy one… there was also Twelfth Brother to think about. 

He had been there with them in the temple, accompanied by his Dark Side pets, but he hadn’t been affected by the beast. Just as the Jedi and the Apprentice hadn’t been affected. Surely that was more evidence that Luke had been behind this - he’d protected his favourite. If she spoke to Twelfth Brother though… if she told him what had happened, let him take that back to Luke… was that what the Apprentice was looking for? Would it go easier for them if they went begging to him, if they offered themselves up willingly for whatever was the next part of his plan? 

Fourth Sister’s life was already as good as forfeit, and given that she couldn’t make things any worse for herself, perhaps it was worth a shot.

\----

**1 ABY – VCX-100 freighter _Ghost,_ Belderone, Belderone Sector, Outer Rim**

Perhaps the worst thing about this civil war was the rumours. Alliance Command were pretty good about keeping them all informed about the victories and occasional defeats of their own forces, but it didn’t seem as though anyone could be entirely sure about what was going on out there in the wider galaxy. Intelligence had to have their hands full, and of course their information went straight to Mon Mothma. _Ghost_ and Spectre were technically agents of Intelligence but that didn’t mean they were any more informed than anyone else either - that flow of knowledge was one-way only. That didn’t stop other people pestering them about what they didn’t have though, and Sabine was getting tired of it. She was going off of the rumours just like everybody else.

They were on Belderone in the first place because they’d been tasked with securing KDY’s AT-AT production facilities and preventing their destruction while the Rebel Alliance took the planet, assisted by Vader-aligned Imps who had been fighting against their own for the past month. That had been relatively easy, at least compared to some of the things Spectre had pulled off in the past. Once the factory was in lock-down however, they had to sit and wait for the rest of the fighting outside to finish, and that left a lot of time to think. 

That wasn’t something Sabine enjoyed these days. 

It was easy when she was in the thick of a mission, when all she had to worry about was the plan. In between, when she had to think about everything that had happened, everything she - and Hera and Zeb - had lost, the thoughts kept on swirling round and round in her brain. Could they have done something on _Executor_ to break Ezra of his long conditioning - if that could even be done? Was Ezra as an Inquisitor really beyond saving, as Ahsoka had seemed to think? How was Leia managing? Was she still a prisoner - although surely they would have heard something if the Alliance had managed to pull off a rescue mission? 

Vader’s Empire seemed to be surviving, even growing. Ryloth was inside the borders of the New Empire now - Sabine had heard that much, and Hera had confirmed it. That was weighing on their Captain, she could tell. Worries about her father. As if they all hadn’t had enough to worry about already…

“Sabine.” And speaking of Hera, there she was. Their Captain approached along the factory walkway where Sabine had been sitting looking down at the stalled production line and the vast, cold, immobile shells of Imperial war machines, and sat down next to her. “I just received word,” Hera said. “The capital’s been taken, and the Sector Moff has surrendered. We can leave soon.”

Sabine wrenched herself away from her own morbid thoughts. “Do we have another mission yet?” she asked. 

Hera shook her head. She seemed to be considering something. “I spoke with my father again,” she said, after a moment’s thought. “He told me he’s been appointed as the Governor of Ryloth.” 

It took a moment for the words - and their significance - to sink in. When they did Sabine swore in Mando’a. “That’s… wow. I would _never_ have expected that.”

“Neither would I,” Hera replied. “And I’m… suspicious. Not that I think Cham wasn’t telling the truth, but…”

“I know what you mean,” Sabine said, “but you know your father’s too smart to be taken in by something that sounds too good to be true.”

Hera drummed her fingernails lightly against the metal grating they were sitting on. The resulting sound echoed in the massive space. “I’ve asked Command for permission to go on an information-gathering mission,” she said. “They’ve granted my request.”

“We’re going to Ryloth?”

“Yes. We’re going to Ryloth.”


	50. Chapter 50

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Luke tries to fix things and reaps the unintended consequences, Hera doesn't want to be convinced, and Aphra begins to work with an unexpected individual.

**1 ABY - Tatooine, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

Twelfth Brother had passed on the message, as she’d known he would, and now here she was - sitting across from the Apprentice in one of the rooms of the dead Hutt’s Palace. It was impossible for Fourth Sister to read anything from Luke about his real intentions, but he had agreed to _something_ , and the longer she went without barriers in her mind the more she became certain she would give up a lot to have some semblance of peace again. He smiled at her, softly, as though he meant her no harm at all, and she had to keep from shuddering. 

She was afraid - she wasn’t foolish enough to deny that to herself, but although fear could help it wasn’t the kind of emotion the Dark liked best. Besides which, open as she knew she was, he would be able to read that in her. Other people’s fear… oh, that was a much better fuel. No wonder he was smiling. 

“I hope this won’t hurt,” the Apprentice said, falsely apologetic, “but I don’t know if it will. I'm going to take this very slowly - but I don’t want to get your hopes up that I can fix this on my first try.”

“We shall see,” Fourth Sister replied. They both had their legs crossed beneath them, facing each other sitting on thick cushions that looked as though they ought to have slaves lounging on them. Twelfth Brother had looked as though he wanted to stay and watch, but she had kicked him out and Luke hadn’t insisted otherwise. 

“Try and relax, if you can,” Luke said. His eyes drifted closed and the Force around him - around them both - changed. Deep. Still. Peaceful, in the way wild things and wild places were peaceful. It was cool enough in the Palace, but for a moment Fourth Sister felt as though they were sitting on rolling dunes of sand outside in the desert, hot sun beating down on her head and the vast blue horizon opening up on every side… There was a heavy weight pressing down on her, but not on her body; on her mind. 

She was… hollow. An empty space waiting to be filled with the her that was her pushed into the very back and bottom of her skull. The top parts, the thinking parts… compressed. She felt at peace. There was no will to fight. She was aware of her body at a distance. Limbs heavy as lead. There was a bright star ahead. No, a sun. Life and power. A wellspring of the vital energies of the universe, a hole cut out of the sky into a greater beyond, a world beyond the world.

She stared, hypnotised. Numb. Unresisting.

There was, she was dimly aware, another presence here. A film or kind of thin layer around the sun yet… which was the sun at the same time? It had a voice. It had thoughts. She was looking at those thoughts, seeing the kind of person that they were. Worried, anxious, concerned about what it was doing, about her… It was strange. She wasn’t used to anyone being concerned about her. In response the other self rippled, emotions magnified even more. It was reaching out to her in the sun’s rays, wanting to do… something.

She didn’t mind letting it. The warmth was all around her anyway, it was already inside her, yet she understood there was still a choice to be made. She could allow this, or not. The sun was so open though and it so clearly wanted to help…

There was bright light, and flame, and a wall of shadows and burnt stone rising with the fluid motion of a bubble made of smoke and the sun was burning from inside and out like the morning through mist and… 

Sleep, or unconsciousness, took her. Unresisting, relaxed, she went into it and let the darkness fall. 

\----

**1 ABY - Ryloth, Gaulus Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

_Ghost_ came out of hyperspace above Ryloth and into the durasteel gaze of a trio of Imperial Star Destroyers. Hera resisted the urge to take evasive action. She hadn’t called ahead - intentionally - but she was here on official Alliance business. They were allies now and she had nothing to fear from them. It was easy to tell herself that, much less easy to believe it. She had spent too long running, fighting, hating… 

“ _Unidentified freighter, please identify yourselves and your purpose._ ” The clipped Core accent coming over the comms grated in her ears, not making things any better. Hera grit her teeth, but reached for the console to reply.

“This is the Rebel Alliance vessel _Ghost_ ,” she said. “We’re here to speak to whoever’s in charge on Alliance business. I’m sending you our codes now.”

There was a pause while the Imps thought about this, but they got back on the line more quickly than she might have expected. Perhaps this Pellaeon happened to be on the bridge so they hadn’t had to run too far to pass it up the chain. Force forbid any Imp officer took the initiative on anything anyway, at least in her experience.

“Received and acknowledged. Permission is given to dock aboard the ISD- _Chimera_ , and you will be able to meet with our Rear-Admiral in due course.” Once they’d checked she was who she said she was, Hera mentally translated. 

She hadn’t told her father she would be coming either. The reasons for that were more complicated, but it really came down to the fact that she didn’t trust anything about the situation on Ryloth. She didn’t _know_ anything; she just had the rumours to go on, and those rumours were all far too good to be true. If Cham really had been made the governor and it wasn’t just propaganda, what did that even mean? What if he had been trapped into some kind of… Imperial puppetry. Made into a figurehead. What if his transmissions were being monitored? 

She would know more soon. Hera hoped her cynicism would turn out to be unfounded, but she had been fighting in this war too long to be anything but cynical. She had once been told rebellions were built on hope, but there could be little hope in a galaxy like this. 

One part of her argued with the rest. Hadn’t they made strides against the Empire for the first time in years? Weren’t they - as some might say - winning? It was easy to find a reply. All of it was built on what Darth Vader had started. All of it could not have happened if they hadn’t agreed to work with a monster with as much blood on his hands as the Emperor himself. Was that winning? Was that a cause for hope? Overthrowing one horror to allow another to take its place? - because she didn’t believe for a second that Vader’s promise of a ‘better candidate’ was anything more than a smokescreen to hide his true intentions. 

Morbid thoughts, but common ones for her these days. Hera tried to push them out of her head as she brought _Ghost_ round towards _Chimera_ and then into the hangar that had been marked out for her. Once she’d set the ship down, she unbuckled her pilot’s harness and went down to the living area where Zeb, Chopper and Sabine were waiting for her. 

For a moment, caught up in her thoughts, Hera could only see the empty spaces where the rest of her family should have been standing. As though Kanan and Ezra were just about to walk through one of the doors discussing the Jedi of old. She swallowed past the lump in her throat. 

“We’re going to be meeting with this Rear-Admiral Pellaeon soon enough,” she said. “We all need to be alert and ready for anything. Depending on how much of what the New Empire has been passing on to the Alliance has been propaganda, this could easily turn bad in a hurry.”

Zeb snorted. “If it does, we’ll get their commander before they get us.”

“There’s someone coming,” Sabine said.

Most of the hanger had been cleared out of its usual personnel for their arrival, but as Sabine had pointed out, there was a short woman in an officer’s uniform approaching from one of the open blast doors leading deeper into the ship. 

“Welcome to the ISD- _Chimera_ ,” she said, once she was close enough. Her eyes flicked over them with a wariness Hera was certain their own eyes mirrored. “Of course we’re always happy to have representatives of our allies on board.”

“We’re certainly eager to meet Rear-Admiral Pellaeon,” Hera replied, keeping her tone light and breezy as she was able. “I’ve heard a lot about him.”

The officer shrugged. “We aim to set a good example here,” she said, somewhat cryptically. “If you’ll follow me?”

She led them to a turbolift which began the typical low hum as it swept them on towards their unknown destination. Hera did her best to keep an eye out for any kind of signs or labels that might let them find their way back to the hanger if things did take a turn for the worst, enough so that with the standard Imperial layout in mind she felt fairly confident she would be able to work it out if she really had to. Still, if Pellaeon really had managed to trap her father into something it meant he would be too canny to try something obvious. Treachery - if it came - would approach in a different form.

They eventually arrived in a corridor looking very much like most of the others they’d seen, save that when the Imp brought them to a door a little further down it, it opened up into a large room decorated as a minimalist living area - the kind of use of space that only rank could get you on a space-faring vessel. A somewhat stout, pale man of medium height was seated within reading from a datapad; he set it down when they entered and stood up to greet them. He sported some not-quite-regulation facial hair, Hera noted; a bushy moustache that probably made him look genial to human sensibilities. 

“You must be the representatives from the Alliance,” he said, smiling. “A pleasure to meet you; however your codes did not include your names I’m afraid. Mine is, of course, Gilad Pellaeon, Rear-Admiral of this fleet.” He paused momentarily, looking at Hera. “I must say you look familiar. Have we met at all before?”

“No,” Hera replied, knowing she was being too curt but finding it difficult to stop herself. 

“No, not in person,” Pellaeon said, half to himself, “somewhere else… in a picture?” 

Was there still a portrait of her somewhere in their old house? Had the Imperials kept their things in storage rather than simply throwing them into the garbage disposal? She hadn’t come here expecting anything like this - could she turn it to their advantage or had she put them in some kind of danger? She could see in his eyes the moment the realisation dawned. 

“Hera Syndulla!” Pellaeon exclaimed. “Cham’s daughter! He never mentioned you might be coming to Ryloth.”

That he’d used her father’s first name like that, as though he had a right to it, as though they were _friends_ , grated on her every nerve. Hera’s jaw tightened, but she forced herself to be polite. “I thought it might be a nice surprise,” she said. 

“He’s mentioned you of course,” Pellaeon said. “So your companions must be Spectre, the crew of the freighter _Ghost._ ” He was smiling still, though not as broadly. “Apparently you caused a lot of trouble for us in the Lothal Sector before the cease-fire. Not that I appreciate your methods, but I am beginning to understand a little more why people like yourselves were driven to them.”

Zeb’s ears flattened against his skull. “Because your lot tried to wipe us out you mean?” he growled. 

That forced an immediate seriousness onto the Imp officer’s face. “Yes,” he said. “Because of things like that.”

There was a moment of deep, unpleasant silence. 

“But that’s part of the reason you’re here, isn’t it,” Pellaeon said. “The people on my side have given you little enough reason to trust us. You need to see the truth for yourselves - and I hope I can help to reassure you on that front.”

“Perhaps you can,” Hera said, still not quite believing it. “You’ll have to show us.”

\----

**1 ABY - Tatooine, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

When Fourth Sister woke up she found herself in the room she’d taken for her own in the Palace, with a medi-droid leaning over her. She pushed it away as she sat up, snarling at it. She wasn’t fond of the things, not after being subject to their tender mercies on Mustafar so many times.

“You have recovered,” the droid said, stating the obvious. “That is fortuitous. Your acquaintances have been waiting; I shall summon them.” It moved to leave, but her grip was still tight around its arm and she pulled it back before it could get very far.

“My acquaintances?” she asked it.

The droid’s optics blinked. “Yes. The intimidating individuals who dress similarly to yourself. They came not long after you were brought here - I presume they have some interest in speaking with you about what happened to cause such a state.”

“How long have I been out?” There was no natural light in here to give her a clue, but her stomach was growling with hunger and her throat dry with thirst. On top of that her head ached badly, but she was trying not to think about that. She was half afraid to check on her mental shielding in case it was still gone - or in case she found something horrid when she poked around at the inside of her head. 

“A little over six hours,” the droid replied. “I can be more accurate, but organics seem to find this unnecessary.”

“And how long have they been waiting?” Fourth Sister asked, indicating towards the door with a jerk of her head. 

“Two of them came nine minutes after you did. The rest an hour later. They have kept a rotating watch since then.”

Far too quickly for them not to have known what she was up to. She didn’t like that. Aside from Twelfth Brother, she hadn’t told anyone that there was something wrong with her - but then, they must have known something was wrong with themselves and made the logical leap from there. SImply paying attention to the currents of the Force might have been enough to tell them the Apprentice was doing something big, and that she was involved. 

“Let them in then,” Fourth Sister told the droid. There was nothing to gain by hiding, and she had the leverage of information. 

While the droid was gone, she took a moment to compose herself. Thinking about what had happened, she found it almost hard to trust her memories because of how strange it had all been. The Force had always been clear enough to her, although she had heard it became a lot less so if you asked it for things that were more metaphysical than just enhancing your natural abilities. That had been… odd. She had seen something in the heart of that strange sun, and she was going to have to spend some time thinking about it to work out what it meant. 

She didn’t have long to wait before Ninth Brother and Sixth Sister entered. The droid tried to come in again behind them, but Ninth Brother pushed it back out the door with a snarl. “Privacy required,” he told it, ignoring its protests. 

“So,” Sixth Sister said. Her teeth were bared - not a smile. “Your brain still intact, or did the Apprentice scramble it completely?”

A good question. She felt like herself, and apart from the headache her thoughts seemed to be clear. 

“Let’s check,” Ninth said, and the Dark Side coalesced around him briefly before stabbing out in a mental lance of intent. Fourth Sister reacted as she’d been trained, slamming up the layered walls in her mind. Not subtle, but neither was that kind of attack. Pleasure swept through her when her shielding responded to her call, deflecting the Force probe away without even seeming to make her headache any worse. 

“I hope that answers your questions,” she said. 

“Half the question,” Ninth Brother replied, although he wasn’t quite able to hide the edge of pain in his voice from the feedback he’d undoubtedly just suffered. 

“What was the price?” Fourth Sister asked for him. She… didn’t know the answer to that one. Nor was she about to say she’d been desperate enough not to have asked. 

“He didn’t tell me.”

Their eyes narrowed. “Shall we just wait and see?” Sixth Sister asked.

“If you want to continue to be vulnerable for however long _that_ takes,” she told them. They ought to have to make just the same choice she had; she certainly was not about to given them any advantages. She could see them thinking about it, knowing that even if she found something hidden in her mind in the next few days that didn’t mean she would _tell_ them about it. 

“You’ve been so very, very helpful _Sister,_ ” Sixth Sister said. “Let’s go Ninth. The Seconds will want a report.”

So the rest of them had found out about it as well then. Even more reason Sixth Sister and Ninth Brother wouldn’t want to wait - not when everyone now knew they were vulnerable. That wasn’t really her problem any more, Fourth Sister thought. Working out where the trigger or time-bomb was in her head was. 

\----

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

Aphra looked up when she heard the knock at her door. She hadn’t been expecting a visitor - it wasn’t as though she had _friends_ here. Friendship wasn’t the kind of thing she was interested in at any rate; certainly not with Imps even if with the New Empire they couldn’t really be called that anymore. She went over to see who it was, curiosity getting the better of her. 

A tall, pale-skinned, brunet man was waiting outside, standing a hair shy of being at attention. His facial hair was… interesting. She had never seen an Imp officer with such exaggerated but neatly clipped muttonchops before. “Who are you and what d’you want?” she asked.

“You’re Doctor Aphra?” 

Aphra nodded, wary. 

“I am Agent Kallus - of what used to be the Imperial Security Bureau,” he told her. “I’ve been asked to work with you on developing a propaganda campaign.”

It sounded pretty outlandish even for her. Aphra leaned against the doorframe, her interest piqued. She hadn’t heard anything about this before now, but that didn’t mean this guy wasn’t telling the truth. “So, ISB,” she said, looking to get a bit more to go on. “I guess you’re pretty kriff-assed at your job then.”

A very slight flush coloured the agent’s cheeks. “I heard Darth Vader’s speech, as did every other person in the Empire. COMPNOR has always been about preserving the ideals of the Empire itself - in the end the Emperor is just one man. Vader was right - I saw that, and so did most of the others on _Relentless_.”

Aphra could get a sense of what he wasn’t saying, but she wanted to see what he would do if she pushed. “Most?”

“There were some… unfortunate casualties,” Kallus replied. Smooth, but she’d expected as much from a political officer. 

“And now?” Aphra asked. “How did you get mixed up in designing this ‘propaganda campaign’, whatever it turns out to be about?”

“Admiral Piett issued a fleet-wide request for anyone with the requisite skills to volunteer themselves for this project. I did so.”

It sounded like the truth, but Aphra was still a little wary. That was just in her nature, though she had to admit it was harder to trust an ISB agent. There was still some chance he might not be as committed to Lord Vader as he claimed. That might be simple paranoia talking. She might as well hear the details of the job and go on from there. 

“Come in then,” she said, standing aside to let the Imp enter her quarters. “What are we going to be working on?”

“Something about raising the profile of Darth Vader’s… um… son.” 

Aphra smirked. Sounded like that had been news to him. It was about time Vader got around to doing this though, and she was happy to be involved. “Sounds like we have our work cut out for us,” she said. 

\----

**1 ABY - Tatooine, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

There was only one person Luke could think of to talk to once he realised what he’d accidentally done. His Father wasn’t back yet from the Arkanis battle site - although they’d had reports back so at least he knew he was okay. Leia would try and comfort him by being pragmatic about it, which he appreciated, but which wasn’t what he felt he needed when he was trying to work out how to _fix_ it. No, Ezra was the only choice.

Luke hadn’t spent as much time with Ezra recently as he would have wanted to. Sure Ezra had been _around,_ but Luke had been so busy with everything that had spiralled out of the civil war that there hadn’t been many opportunities for them to actually do things together like they had at Bast Castle, or even on _Executor_. Perhaps it hadn’t helped that Luke had been worrying so much about the other Inquisitors; about what had been done to them, about what they thought of _him_. 

He didn’t have any trouble finding Ezra now. They knew each other well enough that Luke could sense him in the Force, although the presence of the hssiss helped. He was in the bedroom he’d claimed, and from the datapad he still had in his hand when he answered the door to Luke’s anxious knocking, he’d been reading. 

“Luke,” Ezra said, looking surprised. “It’s late. I thought you were in bed.” He paused as a thought seemed to occur to him - and a natural one given that Luke was certain he looked half-panicked. “Did you have some kind of vision? Do we have to go somewhere?”

“No… I was up meditating,” Luke replied. Which was true - he’d been communing with the Force in order to check up on the shielding of the Inquisitors. All three of them, since it hadn’t taken very long after his apparent success with Fourth Sister for the other two to approach him. “Can I come in?”

“Of course,” Ezra replied, moving out of the way. He was dressed for bed in loose night clothes, but the palace was warm enough even after dark that there wasn’t any need for him to put on something warmer. He put his datapad down on the table and sat on the edge of the bed, hands in his lap, giving the ‘pad a slightly embarrassed smile. “I was just thinking I should get to work on some of those documents from the temple here…”

“Thank you Ezra,” Luke said, a little startled. “What I came to talk to you about though… it’s nothing to do with that. And it wasn’t a vision either. It’s…” It was hard to admit how badly he’d messed up. “There’s a problem with the Inquisitors.”

Ezra straightened, looking affronted. “What’ve they done…?”

“Nothing _they’ve_ done,” Luke said quickly. “Something _I’ve_ done, when I helped to repair their mental shielding. I… I don’t even know how it happened. I certainly wasn’t _intending_ for it to happen. And I need to figure out how to reverse it but first I need to know how to tell _them_ about it without them taking it in the worst possible way…”

“Something Sithy?” Ezra guessed. “Something you think _they’ll_ think is Sithy anyway.”

Luke sighed. “You know that technique you found in the first set of files. The one about communication over long distances.”

Ezra’s eyes went wide. “You worked out how to do it?” he said, excitement clear in his voice before it faded away as he thought Luke’s words over a little more. “No, you did it, but… you didn’t mean to do it?”

Luke raked a hand through his hair. “I’ve left a part of myself in their heads,” he said, and felt a little better even to get the words out there in the open. “It’s horrible. It’s a violation. I don’t even know why it happened, but now there’s a link between me and each of them, one I don’t think they even know about. _I_ didn’t realise it was there until tonight and I almost didn’t notice it. But it’s like I’ve left a backdoor into their minds and I can just _sense_ that I’ll be able to reach through it if I ever wanted to no matter how far they go from me.”

There was a pause, a long slow silence as the both of them tried to find the right way of dealing with what Luke had just said. 

“There’s no way I can tell them about it that will stop them from thinking I did this on purpose,” Luke said. 

“You’re right there,” Ezra said with a sigh. “If I had met you like they did, I’d think the same. Force, I’m the one that told them this ability existed!”

“You did?” Luke frowned. He didn’t recall Ezra - or indeed any of the Inquisitors - mentioning anything about that before now. 

Ezra winced. “Maybe not my best idea ever,” he said. “It’s just that it would be so useful - but I was just suggesting they could consider it if they decided they wanted to commit to our side of the war for real. Except now they’ll think I was just laying the groundwork for…”

“For my manipulation,” Luke said, finishing the thought. He sighed. _How_ had this happened? “Or worse, they’ll think this whole sequence of events is some kind of punishment for not agreeing to it sooner.”

“Yeah,” Ezra agreed. “They will completely think that.”

“I’ve got to find some way of fixing this,” Luke said firmly. “If I can come to them with the solution, if I can offer them _that_ , maybe they’ll believe it was an accident.”

“How did you learn to fix their shields in the first place?” Ezra asked. “Maybe if you look at it again you can figure out where you went wrong…”

Luke was already reaching for the holocron. He kept it in one of his pelt pouches so as to make sure it was always safe. Ezra looked at it with interest. 

“Is that the holocron you told me about?” he asked. “The Arkanii one?”

Luke was a little startled to realise that Ezra hadn’t seen it yet. Keeping the holocron secret had become a habit by now, but he had mentioned that it was the source of his information about the temples on Arkanis and Tatooine. He just hadn’t… shown it to anyone aside from his sister. “Yes,” he said. “She helped me with the healing techniques.”

“But… you aren’t supposed to be able to learn a technique properly from a holocron,” Ezra objected. He was disappointed, Luke could tell. 

“I wasn’t being _reckless,_ ” he told Ezra. “Everything the holocron has taught me so far has gone fine! Why would this be different?” Although… maybe he was protesting so much because he felt guilty. Hadn’t he worried about what could go wrong with something as delicate as healing a mind? Maybe he _shouldn’t_ have done it, but Fourth Sister had _asked_.

“Open it then,” Ezra said, gesturing at it. “Maybe it knows what went wrong.”

Luke calmed his mind. It wouldn’t be smart to do this if he wasn’t in control of his emotions - he had enough bad experiences with the Dark Side that he had no wish to repeat them. He reached for the two elements of the Force and felt the holocron slide into alignment in his hands. Ezra was looking at him oddly when he opened his eyes again, and it wasn’t just because of the purple light that was spilling out between them. 

“So you _can_ use the Dark,” he said quietly. “But I’ve never seen you do it…”

Luke didn’t have a chance to reply. Alkamar did it for him. “He is more wise than you to do so, young Sithling.”

Ezra looked down, startled. “What… oh. Um. Hello.”

Alkamar nodded at him. “You must be the one who was given the name of Fourth Brother - or Ezra, as you are truly known. Luke has mentioned you.”

“As he has you, Master,” Ezra replied, with wary respect. 

“Teacher, please,” Alkamar said, with an expression of distaste. “My people dislike _that_ title. Now, you must be in need of some kind of advice, to open my holocron so soon after the last time.”

Haltingly at first, ashamed of himself, Luke managed to explain what he had done. He didn’t meet Alkamar’s eyes much towards the end of it. 

“I just want to know how it happened,” he said at last. “And more importantly how I can fix it.”

Alkamar spent some moments in deep thought. “I am surprised to hear of what has come to pass,” she said eventually. “Links between souls do not form easily, not unless it is within the bonds of family - as you have experienced yourself. To forge such a bond is to commit oneself to another person, for they do not tend to be as one-sided as you believe these are. It may simply be because these Sithlings are not aware of what has happened, but without seeing for myself…”

“If you need to look then look,” Luke said, reaching out to the holocron with the Force, ready to drop his own mental defences. 

“The briefest glance,” she assured him, and reached for him in turn. 

Alkamar’s presence was strange, more ghost than person. As promised, she did not need long before she withdrew, the holocron’s light waxing again where it had briefly waned. “It is as I suspected,” she said. “You care about these allies of yours, enough to want to protect them. The Force sensed that intention when your energy mingled with theirs - the bonds are the result. They can be blocked off from either end, if the party is aware of the things existance, and if this is done the bond will eventually fade with time. Yet I suspect you may find it harder to let it alone than you might think, given how the bonds came about in the first place.”

“So… could they work both ways then?” Luke asked.

“If the Sithlings become aware of them, then yes.”

Luke had a momentary wild idea that if they could see into his own mind, could understand him, then they might finally be able to accept that he wasn’t a Sith, and that he wasn’t going to do them any harm. Except that surely the Inquisitors wouldn’t want the price of that knowledge to be an invasion of their privacy. Surely they would rather shut off the connections; let them wither and die. 

In the end, it wasn’t his choice. It was theirs. And he would have to give them the information they needed to make it.


	51. Chapter 51

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vader arranges a road trip, Luke confesses his actions, and Han has a plan.

**1 ABY - Jabba’s Palace, Tatooine, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

Luke didn’t get the chance to talk to the three Inquisitors he had accidentally linked himself to before his father got back in-system. There had been little notice - just Vader’s voice coming through their familial connection scant hours before his ship came out of hyperspace. Luke only realised how much he had missed him when had had to wait for Vader’s shuttle to land, because his father was near enough that his presence in the Force reached out like a vast, chill shadow enveloping everything around them, but not yet near _enough_. Anticipation threw Luke’s emotions into sharp relief and made him realise he had wanted his father’s support with everything that had happened these past weeks. 

Of course knowing Darth Vader, his advice would not have been particularly helpful, nor would he find much fault in Luke’s actions, but that wasn’t the kind of support Luke meant. Just… the simple fact of knowing that someone was there for him. That Vader loved him no matter what. 

The Inquisitors, and Ezra, were part of this welcoming party too. Leia wanted no part of it, predictably. She was happy enough to work with Luke at least, and even if she was still prickly towards him at times he could hardly blame her considering everything she’d been through. That didn’t mean she would stand and smile in Vader’s presence. It was difficult to stand around with the Inquisitors here though, even if he did have Ezra for company. Every moment that went by without fixing his horrible mistake felt like a breach of trust - and Luke didn’t even know if the Inquisitors were aware yet of what he’d done. 

_It appears there is much we must discuss, my son,_ Vader said inside his head. 

_Father?_ Luke wondered how much Vader was aware of.

 _I am aware of your distress. There is something that troubles you._ Vader replied. _I too have a topic of which we must speak._

_That seems ominous._

_There is nothing here to fear Luke._ Vader said. _Merely your destiny._

The shuttle approached, skimming over the desert sands and throwing up clouds in its wake. Luke had no time to ask his father what he meant before the ship was settling down outside the heavy main doors to the building. The ramp hissed open and Vader was the first to descend it. He was followed by two others - Dr Aphra, unmistakable as ever, and a man Luke didn’t know. Or… did he? There was something about his face that struck a chord in his memory… 

“Kriffing hells,” Ezra said next to him, very quietly. Luke looked over - his friend was stiff as a board, staring as though he’d seen a ghost. “Agent Kallus.”

The memory came back immediately. The temple on Vrogas Vas. The visions. This man had been one of those who had hunted Ezra and his chosen family before he had been sent to Mustafar. What kind of coincidence could it be, to run into him again? Or not a coincidence but the Force, although Luke couldn’t imagine any reason for the Force to bring the two of them together again. 

“Are you okay?” he whispered to Ezra.

Ezra glanced over at him, startled out of his intense concentration on the Imperial officer. “I… yes.” Then with more conviction; “yes.” He might have said more, but Vader was already approaching. 

“Hello my son,” Vader said, laying a hand on Luke’s shoulder. His mask allowed no external expression of emotion, but Luke could feel the waves of love in the Force. No surprise given how hard it had been to persuade his father to let him remain on Tatooine without him in the first place. 

“It’s good to see you again,” Luke replied, letting himself relax a little for the first time in, perhaps, days. “Is Arkanis…?”

“The Emperor’s fleet presented small challenge to our own,” Vader replied, scornful, “even having chosen to ally with scum such as the Hutt Clans. They have been driven off. Our territory is secure for the present time. And what of your own efforts here?”

“Kind of successful,” Luke replied. “It’s a little complicated to explain out here.”

Vader nodded, then waved to Aphra and Kallus. “I have brought these two here regarding a matter of some importance. You know Doctor Aphra. The other is Agent Kallus, who has volunteered himself for this task despite his unfortunate former connections with the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order. I have made certain he is worthy of our trust.”

Kallus flinched at this last statement, and Luke recognised with a sinking heart that his father had probably forced his way into his memories to do so. Luke had thought that after Commandant Hux on Arkanis it would have been clear to his father how much he hated things like that, but Vader seemed to believe it was his job to do the so-called ‘necessary’ things that Luke wouldn’t. Aside from being there in person however, he wasn’t sure what else he could do to stop it . 

“Let’s go inside then,” he suggested, not wanting to bring the topic up until he was in a place where he could really _shout_ at his father. “You’ll want to hear what the people we freed have been getting up to as well.”

There were plenty of rooms inside Jabba’s Palace built for privacy, although most of them were Dark enough in the Force that Luke wouldn’t use them unless he really had to. He managed to find one of the more bearable ones for them to talk in. Of course now that he had brought the subject up, Vader wanted to hear everything that the slaves' network had been managing to accomplish, and how their efforts had spread across the sector and beyond. That took up the conversation for some time before Luke eventually brought it back around to the reason why Aphra and Kallus were here. He wanted to put off speaking about the Inquisitors for a little while longer, although the dread of it was a constant weight in the pit of his stomach that it was hard to be distracted from. 

“I have promised the galaxy a worthy ruler,” Vader began by saying, which did not bode well. “Do you still insist you are not such a person?”

“Are we really going back to this?” Luke complained. “I’m not just going to change my mind!”

Vader’s presence in the Force was both skeptical and frustrated. “If I must reiterate my point, there are no other candidates. Certainly you have not managed to suggest one to me. You are welcome to do so.”

“The Senate?” Luke suggested.

“Even the Senate had the Chancellor,” Vader pointed out. 

“A politician!” Luke replied. “Whose job was to help manage all the other politicians. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

A brief flash of pleasure warned him he’d fallen into Vader’s rhetorical trap. “And thus the need for our present company.”

Luke looked at the pair with a degree of disbelief. Aphra was smiling at him smugly. Kallus looked too respectful of Vader’s mere presence to do anything save keep his face blank and accepting, although his emotions told a different story. “Sorry Aphra but you’re a smuggler, not a politician. And I don’t think Agent Kallus is one either.”

“I think you might be surprised how much those two job descriptions overlap sometimes,” Aphra told him. “Besides, I’m an archeologist as well as a smuggler. I know culture, even if most of the time I don’t give a nerf’s _shebs_ about it. As for the ISB goon, he’s handling the propaganda side of things.”

“What does that mean?” Luke asked, dread growing for an entirely new reason. He glanced at his father, but Vader seemed content to have said his part and was leaving the explanation to Aphra.

“Here’s the thing,” Aphra said. “It’s not just you needing to know more about how to do the job. It’s that no-one knows who you are. The Agent’s job is to make you _popular._ And that starts with our own people first - which ties right back into the first thing. Who’s our main support at the moment? Imperial officers. Oh, most of them have at least heard of you by now, but they’ve never met you. No matter the shape of the galaxy a few years down the line, right now you’re in the same position as any Imperial Moff - if you don’t have the military on board, you’re going to crash and burn. 

“And,” she added, “if you don’t care about making yourself Emperor for some nerf-headed reason, think of it this way. You need these people to win this war. You need to at least know their damned names.”

Luke had been about to object, but he stopped. Aphra… had a point. Most everyone was fighting in Vader’s name, because of him or because of what he’d said during that broadcast. But Vader was never going to make what _he_ was fighting for a secret, and eventually people were going to ask questions about this ‘worthy person’ Vader wanted to enthrone. 

“What are you going to have me doing?” he asked.

Aphra’s smile grew. She knew she’d hooked him in. “Think of it like a grand tour. You’re going to visit these good people; their ships and the planets they’re holding for us. Seems simple enough, yeah?”

Luke glanced over at his father. “Won’t that get in the way of the war effort, if we’re always travelling around?” he asked. 

Vader wasn’t physically capable of taking a deep breath, but Luke could sense that he wanted to. “I… will not be going with you,” he said finally, begrudgingly. “I have been... persuaded that it would be unwise.” 

Luke looked over at Aphra, who winked at him. 

“You will naturally have the Inquisitors with you as your personal guard,” Vader continued, in a tone that suggested this was not up for debate. 

Luke took a deep breath of his own. Now or never - and while he didn’t exactly object to taking the Inquisitors with him, he had to get this whole situation sorted out first. “About that,” he said, and began to explain. 

\----

**1 ABY - YT-1300 _Millennium Falcon_ , Dac, Mon Cala Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

“This is a Hell’s-damned karking mess Chewie,” Han said, throwing the hydrospanner down onto the floor with a clatter that echoed along the _Falcon’s_ corridors. 

From the lounge, Chewie roared back an answer, _[Repairs not going well?]_

They weren’t - he was going to have to go begging to the quartermaster here on Dac for the right parts he didn’t have on board, but that wasn’t the real reason he was feeling so restless with pent up energy and frustration. He pulled himself to his feet, wiping his oil-streaked hands on a rag before tossing it back into the toolkit. 

“What are we even doing here Chewie?” he said, going through to join the Wookie in the galley. Usually he didn’t let Chewie cook because the food always ended up with hair in it, but it was hard to mess up reheating ration packs. 

_[Bringing back those sensitive intelligence reports from the front]_ Chewie replied. _[That’s not what you meant though, is it cub?]_

“We don’t belong here,” Han said. There were days - a lot of days now actually - when Han wondered why in the Nine Hells he was still working for the Rebel Alliance. He’d joined up in the first place because of Luke and Leia - more Luke at first than Leia, but that had slowly been changing. Now Luke was with the Empire, even if it was an offshoot, less evil branch of it, and Leia was the New Empire’s prisoner. “These kriffing Rebel idealists don’t need people like us anymore.” He didn’t think the Alliance knew quite what to do with him either. Sure, they always needed ships and personnel, but he was one man, with one Wookie backing him up. So far they’d mostly been taking advantage of the _Falcon’s_ speed, but Han was tired of being a messenger boy and a courier. 

_[You want to help Luke and Leia]_ Chewie said. Damn Wookie knew him too well. 

“Yeah, I do,” Han said with a sigh. Alliance Command certainly didn’t seem to care enough to do a damn thing for them. No kind of rescue mission, not even the rumour of one, and Han would have found out if there was. He would have forced his way onto it. Instead they had him ‘helping the war effort’. Calling this a war would have been laughable a year ago. The Rebellion hadn’t been large enough or strong enough to wage a war. 

A lot had changed.

_[You have a plan?]_

“Do I ever have a plan?” He didn’t - not anything concrete anyway. Still, he usually got along pretty well simply flying by the seat of his pants and taking whatever opportunities he came across. Even if he failed, even if he was captured, so what? He’d at least be back with his friends, the only folks who’d ever really given a damn about him, or who he’d given a damn about in return.

Where else was there for a man like him to go, in this new galaxy busily engaged in tearing itself apart? Jabba was dead - a weight off Han’s mind at least, since the bounty had eaten dust with him. The Hutt Clans were in turmoil now that their business interests across as much as a third of the galaxy were being systematically pursued and dismantled, and the rest were caught up in the same conflict as everyone else. Crime was up, but _organised_ crime was down, down, down. The lesser lords of crime were taking advantage of the opportunity to murder and scheme their way further up the hierarchy. 

Han supposed he could go back to smuggling. Trade routes had been disrupted everywhere, so there were plenty of hungry bellies crying out for supplies, or the rich of the galaxy willing to pay through the nose to have their little luxuries back. Whenever he thought about it though, he imagined the reaction he would have gotten from Luke or from Leia when they heard about it, and then he couldn’t face the idea any more. No, rescue it had to be, even if it was the kind of dream he’d have called anyone else a fool for even thinking of.

 _[Whatever you do, I’m with you]_ Chewie told him. Han thumped him affectionately in the chest. 

“Yeah I know that, you big fuzzball. Let’s go do something stupid.”

\----

**1 ABY - ISD- _Vigilance_ , Tatooine, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

Fourth Sister was glad to be leaving Tatooine. The weather on that planet didn’t agree with her, and she would rather put it and everything that had happened to her whilst she was there far behind her. She had been briefed on their upcoming assignment along with the other Inquisitors and it sounded a lot better - and safer - than exploring ancient abandoned temples built by strange and unfamiliar Force-users. Playing bodyguard was easy. Not that the Apprentice needed anyone to look after him - he was more than capable - but if the Sith Lords needed someone to throw their bodies in the way of attackers, far be it for her to refuse. 

There was a familiar Force presence heading her way. The knock on her door, when it came, was therefore not a surprise. Apprehensive about what Lord Luke might want with her _now_ , Fourth Sister opened the door. Twelfth Brother was with him as well. She glared at him. 

“Can I come in?” the Apprentice asked. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

Fourth Sister stepped away from the door, allowing him entrance. That was his right anyway; there was no need for him to ask. He left Twelfth Brother outside, and stood awkwardly in the centre of her room, seeming to have difficulty in deciding how to start the conversation. ‘Seemed’ being the operative word there, she reflected to herself. He had fixed the damage that had been done to her mind, true enough, but she hadn’t yet worked out if he had done anything else to her at the same time. She was still sure he was playing games with them all. 

“I’m afraid I’ve done something you’re not going to be happy about,” he said, after a few moments where the silence hung thick and heavy in the room. Fourth Sister tensed despite herself. A horrible sense of anticipatory dread rose up inside her. So now he told her about the price? When she didn’t speak, he continued. “When I mended your shields, I did something else. I… created a kind of link.”

He looked terribly sorry for himself, but as the wheels in Fourth Sister’s mind turned and processed what he’d said it didn’t ring true to her. So, he _had_ done something. A link? She’d noticed nothing - but he was a Sith Lord. Of course she hadn’t. What kind of link and what was it going to let him do to her… memory caught up with her. Twelfth Brother’s offer. Long distance communication. Putting the Apprentice inside her head - and now he admitted that he himself had done just that. 

She had to admire the breadth of his plan. Offer them the choice, and when they took too long to decide he had forced the issue by taking them to that trapped temple. He must have known there was a guardian there. Not strong enough to harm _him_ , but more than strong enough to do the damage he needed to the Inquisitors he’d brought with him. Then offer to fix them, knowing that was no real choice, and implant the link he’d wanted this whole time while they were vulnerable.

“I know you’re thinking the worst right now,” the Apprentice was saying, “but I promise you this wasn’t what I intended. I didn’t plan this, it just worked out this way.” He winced - he must know how unbelievable _that_ line was. 

“Why tell me then?” Fourth Sister asked. Her voice came out flat and emotionless. How could it otherwise?

“Because I want to make up for what I’ve done,” Luke told her. “I think I know how it happened, and I wanted to… explain. About what this link is. Not just what Ezra might have told you about something that’s similar but _not_ the same.

“It isn’t a one way link, you see. If I can see into your head, you can see into mine.”

Fourth Sister frowned. She tested his words gently with the Dark Side, but when it came to him she had no real guarantee about her ability to tell truth from lies. All she could say was that it wasn’t coming over as a lie. That didn’t mean much. “I haven’t even felt a link,” she said. “Much less discovered any such ability.” She supposed if it _was_ true then perhaps he had miscalculated. If he’d implanted a dual link rather than one which only he could use then it could only be by accident and he wanted to correct it so that she wouldn’t have even the slightest degree of power over him. 

That made the most sense out of anything - or this was just one more trap. 

“Now that you’re aware it’s there, that may change,” the Apprentice said. “Really, there’s two choices here. If we both leave the link alone and don’t use it, it’ll fade in time and eventually it’ll break completely. But… if you _can_ see into my head… maybe it’s a way to prove to you that I’ve been telling the truth all along. That I’m not a Sith, but something different. That I don’t mean you any harm. That I’m not trying to trick you about anything.”

Fourth Sister hated this. She hated him. How dare he ask for her trust again and again, when trust itself was a lie that only got you hurt and killed! How dare he keep offering choices that weren’t choices! 

“Fine!” she snapped. “I’ll keep it! I’ll find the truth of your plans behind whatever kind of layer of lies you try and show me! Then we can all stop pretending that you’re anything other than what you are!”

He was looking at her pretending to be sad. “If that’s what you want.”

\----

The conversation with Fourth Sister hadn’t exactly gone well. Luke thought there were probably ways that it could have gone worse. Not many though. After having to listen to all the plans Doctor Aphra and Agent Kallus had made for him and then talk to Fourth Sister afterwards, it had been an exhausting day. He wanted nothing more than to go to sleep. 

His quarters on _Vigilance_ were near his father’s. Once Luke wouldn’t have thought Vader’s Force presence could be anything like soothing, but now as he laid down and tried to get settled, he found it strangely relaxing. It was good to have him near. He could feel Leia as well, not so far away. That helped too. Soon he was drifting off, his thoughts scattering into the haze of sleep. 

Luke dreamed. He was back on Tatooine, standing in the desert. Heat rippled the air around him, but in the dream it didn’t have its punishing, deadly strength. Golden sand met sapphire sky in a pure unbroken circle, and looking up felt almost like looking down from a great height. For a dizzying moment, Luke felt as though he might fall into the open expanse of the sky. 

_[Greetings, Child of the Desert]_ a voice said in a language that was like, but was not, Amatakka. 

Luke turned around. There was a man standing there - or at least he assumed it was a man from the sound of the voice. “You’re a Tusken!” he said - it came out like an accusation. The figure’s head tilted as it looked him up and down. 

_[And you are an egg that is hatching. Or have you hatched?]_

Luke blinked, confused. He didn’t know how it was that he understood the other’s words. He could tell they were spoken in a language he did not know, but at some point between the moment the words hit the air and the moment they reached his brain, they became laden with meaning. “I don’t understand what you mean,” he said. 

Something was wheeling in the blue above them. The Tusken raised an arm, and the creature swooped, landing in a flurry of wings. It was a thing that Luke didn’t recognise - not a beast native to Tatooine at least, so why was it here? It had a sleek body with a wide head, huge round eyes, a small beak buried in feathers, and a long furred tail that curled around the Tusken’s arm as the bird made itself comfortable. It looked at Luke and blinked. 

_[This one is not with me]_ the Tusken said. _[They observe - too curious for their own good.]_

“Who are you?” Luke asked. “Why are you here?”

 _[I am as you are]_ the Tusken said. _[I am no more than a Child of the Desert and as to my purpose, it is merely to offer aid.]_ He turned and crouched down in the sand - as he did so the suns flashed off a necklace hanging half-disguised by the traditional wrappings of his people. Three disks of silver, hanging in a familiar pattern from a simple woven chain. The three moons. 

“Are you Arkanii?” Luke asked, suddenly suspicious. 

_[I am Tusken]_ he replied. _[I am also Arkanii. One thing can be many things.]_ He began to dig in the sand.

“Are you a ghost or a memory?”

 _[Two things spoken with the same breath]_ the Tusken said, seeming amused. From the sand something was emerging, the colour of dust and bone. The strange bird clambered up his arm to his shoulder as he used both hands to unearth the creature which began to move as it was freed from its tomb beneath the desert. Luke recognised it. It was the beast that had been guarding the Arkanii temple here on Tatooine - that thing which looked like a lesser krayt, albeit smaller. It shook sand from the spines on its head and back as it clambered up onto more solid ground. 

“You’re here to help me… with the memories I was given?” Luke guessed. 

_[That’s better]_ the Tusken said. _[Now you’re thinking.]_ He motioned for Luke to approach. Cautiously, Luke did so, and found the Tusken grabbing onto his wrist before he could react. He was pulled down so that he was kneeling next to the krayt beast, staring into its eyes which were… not eyes. They looked like still pools of water. Transfixed, Luke looked closer. Were there images flashing across those pools? Flickering like a holoscreen… 

_[Relax]_ came the Tusken’s voice, sounding now far away. _[Remember]_

\----

**1 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Arkanis, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

“You want to… leave?” Kix asked, nonplussed.

Dogma nodded, sharp and curt. “That is correct,” he said.

“Why?” Kix asked, unable to think of anything more sensible to say.

“I need… I need space to think. To get my head on straight,” Dogma explained. He had approached Kix as though he was asking for permission. As though he wasn’t a senior officer. “I can’t… I can’t do that here. I’ve _tried_.”

Perhaps this was a good thing. The worries Kix had been having about Dogma had never really faded, but Dogma never said anything to him. He never confided in any of them, and that meant Kix hadn’t had anything to go on. The mere fact that he was here and talking had to be a good sign. “So where will you go?” he asked. “What are your plans?”

Dogma looked away. “I… do not know,” he admitted. “I think perhaps I’ll try and find Captain Rex. I think there are things we need to discuss. Apologies that need to be made.”

“He’s with the Rebel Alliance,” Kix said, “or at least he was last time I heard. Who knows - perhaps there are more of our kin out there that we’ve missed, like we missed him. Perhaps he might know about them.”

Dogma nodded, a sharp, jerking movement. “Perhaps, but I don’t hold out much hope. That’s not what matters. Putting things right… that’s what matters.”

“Will you be safe?” Kix had to ask. “Out there. Alone?”

“I know what you’re really asking,” Dogma said, scowling. “Yes. I’m not going to eat my blaster, don’t worry about that. If I find what I’m looking for, I’ll see you again anyway, eventually.”

“Good luck then _vod_ ,” Kix said. “ _Jate’kara_.”

\----

**1 ABY - YT-1300 _Millennium Falcon_ , Arkanis, Arkanis Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

The only place Han knew to start looking was Arkanis. It was where he’d been set free, the last place he’d seen Leia and where Vader apparently had garrisoned most of his fleet. He’d had the argument with Chewie about whether going there was safe, but so far as they knew he was still with the Alliance, and they were allies. No reason to try and capture him or shoot him out of the sky. Once Han made planetfall he could work his magic in the bars down on the surface and find some troopers or Imp officers whose tongues could be loosened up by the proper application of Corellian whiskey. It wasn’t very likely that any of the grunts would know where a high-security prisoner was being held, but they should know what Luke was up to these days, him being a top-ranking member of the new regime and all that. Luke _would_ know, and he wouldn’t have any reason not to meet up with Han. Hells, he might even be able to help! Surely he wanted Leia to be free of Vader as much as Han did? 

The fleet that was visible above Arkanis one the _Falcon_ arrived in system was even more impressive that Han remembered. Recruiting had been going well then. He approached the planet, transmitting ident codes when they were requested without any attempt at dishonesty. He honestly wasn’t expecting to be hailed back. 

“Freighter _Millennium_ Falcon,” the crisp Imperial voice came over the channel - almost familiar with its clipped Core accent. “May I assume I am speaking to its Captain Han Solo?”

“You got that right,” Han replied. “You give all your visitors the personalised welcome?”

“Not all of our visitors are members of the Rebel Alliance and previous prisoners of ours,” the Imp said. “I must ask why you are here. It is clearly not on Alliance business.”

“You don’t know that,” Han said, even though he knew it would be a pointless bluff. “We could be.”

“In which case _you_ would have hailed _me,_ ” the man on the other end of the line said. “No, you are here on personal business.”

“Who is this anyway?” Han demanded.

“My apologies Captain, that was remiss of me. This is Grand Admiral Firmus Piett of _Executor_. We met before, very briefly. It’s my guess that you have come here looking for your friends.”

Han felt the sweat trickling along the length of his spine. This really wasn’t how he’d imagined things going. From the seat next to him Chewie shrugged, keeping quiet. Shyriiwook wasn’t very useful in negotiating with Imps anyway. 

“Allow me to make things simpler for you Captain,” the Grand Admiral said. “Luke and Leia Skywalker are not in this system at present. They are aboard the ISD- _Vigilance_ heading to Rodia to join our battlegroup there.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Han asked, suspicious. 

“Because I imagine that Luke will want to see you. I do not intend to stand in the way of our future Emperor’s wishes.”

Han opened his mouth, then closed it again. Future Emperor? What in the depths of the Nine Hells? No way was he going to ask an Imp officer to tell him what he was kriffing talking about though. If they were going to let him see Luke, then he’d ask the kid in person. “Thanks for your help,” he said, because he owed the Grand Admiral that much, then shut off the comm and turned to Chewie.

“Let’s plot a course for Rodia then,” he said.


	52. Chapter 52

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we jump forward to see Ryloth free, Luke and Leia closing in on their goal, and an old friend makes a decision to visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not dead, just busy. And when I'm not, the muse hasn't been co-operating.

**3 ABY - Ryloth, Gaulus Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

Watching the executions had become something of a ritual by now. Hera would join her father and Rear-Admiral Pellaeon in Cham’s office in their home, the one with the large, high-fidelity holoscreen, and discuss politics and current events while they waited for the live broadcast to start. Hera would never have believed when she returned to Ryloth that she would ever come to like an Imperial officer. But Gilad Pellaeon had turned out to genuinely mean everything he said about making up for the evils the Empire had done to their world in the past. The mere fact that he’d managed to convince her father - who hadn’t the slightest ember of mercy within him - ought to have been enough for her after she’d seen that yes, Cham really _did_ believe him and no, he hadn’t been tricked or blackmailed into anything. She had still been sceptical however. She had that in common with her father, and she had needed the same evidence that he had. She had needed to see things with her own eyes.

Luckily, Gilad had no objection to proving his sincerity. He had been eager to facilitate whatever Cham thought necessary to help Ryloth. Some kind of communication had passed between him and someone else in the New Empire - someone apparently higher up the chain who might even have been Darth Vader or his son, although Hera still had some doubts about _that_. It had put him in touch with some people on Tatooine, who had their own connections to a secret web of slaves and ex-slaves all across the Outer Rim, and through them the message had spread. Ryloth is free, and she welcomes her children home.

That was over a year ago. More than enough time for Hera to be convinced that Pellaeon really did want to make amends. 

That wasn’t true about everyone in the New Empire. Hera had a hard time, most nights, of reconciling Darth Vader’s actions in her head. Darth Vader was a monster. He had killed hundreds directly, and hundreds of thousands indirectly. He had conquered planets and people. He had committed atrocities - things all sentient beings would _agree_ were atrocities. But the ease with which the Twi'leki people were able to return to Ryloth with all possible aid from the New Empire was something that could only have been put into place by its ruler and commander. How could Vader the destroyer and Vader the emancipator be the same person? It made so little sense to her, and yet it was so undeniably the reality of things.

“It appears that your people have gotten used to this now,” her father was telling Gilad, gesturing to the line of war-criminals on the holo-screen. “Is it too much to suppose they have genuinely come around to your way of thinking?”

“The findings of the trials have always been public,” Gilad replied. “The men and women who once called themselves servants of the Emperor have seen how much he was hiding from them all, as I did. That, or their guilt in their own complicity has gotten the better of them.”

“Or they're waiting for the right opportunity,” Hera suggested. “An absence of resistance doesn't mean there's nothing there – we know that from our own experience.” When they'd been on the other side of things. If there was a loyalist Imp out there with the same cunning as her father, then they might have a problem.

Gilad was shaking his head. “There haven't even been rumours of it,” he said. “Besides, unlike your own guerillas, they'd get no support from the people. Ryloth's population is swelling every year, and none of them have any reason to love Emperor Palpatine.”

On the screen there was a cheer from the crowd as the plasma blade came down, cauterising as it went, and the first head hit the floor. Hera was aware there had been some criticism from certain quarters – including the leadership of the Rebel Alliance, or the New Republic as they were calling themselves now – because Cham had chosen to hold these executions in public and to broadcast them across as much of the galaxy as they possibly could. They felt it was ghoulish. Perhaps even immoral. That point of view didn't get much traction on Ryloth itself. The Twileks and the other ex-slaves for whom the planet was becoming a home and a rallying point saw this as vindication and justice. Even the humans of the New Empire turned out to watch – as Gilad hypothesised, perhaps they felt the deaths helped to wash away their own share of the guilt.

As the executions on screen started to wrap up, the buzzer on her father's desk went off. “Your next appointment is here,” the tinny voice on the other end of the line announced.

“Send him in,” Cham said.

The man who entered was a familiar one to Hera these days. Like many bounty hunters in this part of space, he had seen the way the wind was blowing. The New Empire was unlike the old one in that it actually _meant_ what it claimed about stamping out crime within its borders, and even the opportunities for jobs in the rest of the the Outer Rim had become rather more treacherous as the civil war raged on. There were plenty of jobs being offered yes, but many more dangers to be found in completing them, and no guarantee the employer would still be around to pay out at the end of it. With the economy in wild flux, Imperial credits weren't worth nearly as much outside of the power centres of Empire, New Empire, and New Republic – certainly not in the scores of small fiefdoms now scattered across the galaxy.

“Enjoying the results of my work?” Boba Fett said, tilting his helmet towards the holoscreen.

“Always,” Cham replied. “I wanted to make sure you intend to keep doing that work for us, that's all.”

“So long as you keep paying me in spice rather than worthless credits I'm on board,” the Mandalorian said, crossing his arms over his chest. Spice had kept its value, and it was only right, Hera thought, that the wealth which for so long had been stolen from Ryloth and its people would go towards bringing them home. “Why the questions?”

“We heard you'd been approached by one of your old comrades on your last job,” Gilad said.

Fett snorted. “You got it the wrong way around. Not that Karrde is a 'comrade' of mine by a long shot, but he was _looking_ for a job. You pay well, and he's got a soft heart under that slick exterior. Stealing slaves and taking down slavers is turning into a lucrative business. Besides, whether you lot win outright or end up making peace some other way, we can all see which way the wind is blowing, and who Vader will be coming for once he's done with Palpatine.”

Both Gilad and her father thought about this, although not for long. “The branch of the Commission,” - he meant the Commission for Recovery and Repatriation which had grown out of the rather less formal organisation of the slave underground - “on Rodia has been looking for more agents. You can tell him he'd find a place there, if he wants it.”

Fett nodded. “He’ll get the message,” he said. “But enough about Karrde. You've got another job for me?”

\----

**3 ABY - ISD- _Colossus_ , Eriadu, Seswenna Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

“Lady Tarkin, thank you for agreeing to meet us here,” Luke said, offering a precise bow in greeting.

Governor Rivoche Tarkin, the Lady in question, curtseyed in response - though her eyes never left Luke’s. It was as picture-perfect as though they were all meeting each other at a function on Coruscant, in the days when the Imperial Senate had still existed. It made Leia a little queasy to think about it. It was too strange to see her brother acting this way and she knew it didn’t sit all that well with him either. He wore it like an ill-fitting suit, one he was always eager to take off. All the acting wore Luke out in a way it never had to Leia when she'd still been a Senator. Angered her, frustrated her, but never tired her.

Fifteen months, Leia reflected to herself. Fifteen months of watching her brother be drawn deeper and deeper into this mess and closer towards what Vader wanted of him. He didn’t see it - or perhaps he did and didn’t see any way out of it - but it was happening all the same. This plan of Doctor Aphra’s was working too well. Besides that, she’d seen the propaganda works Agent Kallus was turning out, and she was forced to admit he had a skill for it. Even when Palpatine had leaked that Luke was responsible for the destruction of the Death Star, Kallus had managed to spin it to sound palatable to New Empire ears.

“The New Empire is known to be honourable,” Lady Tarkin was saying, taking a seat. Luke slid into his own seat at the table opposite her. Leia joined him on his right, while _Colossus’_ Captain took the one on the left. “I am confident that I have nothing to fear by meeting you on your own territory. We can at least be assured of privacy and a calm atmosphere.” She was referring to the fighting still ongoing on the surface of the planet Eriadu. A certain percentage of the population were supportive of the New Empire, but most put their loyalty in the Tarkin family itself. Accepting the faction which counted amongst its leaders one who had been directly responsible for Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin’s death was not going to happen any time soon.

Hence this meeting here. Rivoche Tarkin was Wilhuff Tarkin’s niece, and although his authority as a Moff had been given to others, his holdings and authority on his home planet had reverted to her, his closest relative. If she agreed to work with the New Empire, it would pacify a lot of Eriadu’s natives.

Leia hated that she even understood this much. If she’d had her choice, she wouldn’t be involved in the New Empire’s dealings at all. Except no, no that wasn't right. She'd _had_ a choice. When Han came looking for her, she could have gone away with him. Luke had even told her that he would make sure Vader found out too late to do anything about it, if that was what she wanted. The answer should have been obvious, but Leia had found herself hesitating. It was because of Luke. She knew what he was going to be putting himself through, and how hard it was going to be on him. He didn't have the right kind of character for politics of this kind. So to the surprise of even herself, she had told him she would stay.

Which of course meant Han had stayed as well, even though she told him he was being foolish. Having him around without any other demands on his time had been... good for other reasons though. She pulled her thoughts away from _that_ , since blushing would hardly be appropriate in this situation.

For all that she was doing Vader’s work for him right now, she couldn’t stand back and put Luke at risk. Couldn't let him fall into the political traps that were sure to be waiting out there. So, here she was. Sitting next to him. Helping the New Empire.

“You’re still trusting us by meeting us on board _Colossus,_ ” Luke said to Tarkin, “and thank you for that. I think many of your people would rather you didn’t speak to us at all.”

“True, true,” Governor Tarkin said. “But resisting you isn’t going to get us anywhere. I’m merely thinking of what’s best for my people. Besides,” she lowered her voice conspiratorially, “I never much liked my uncle anyway.

“No, there's really not much of a choice for me here,” she continued, still in that manner as though they were friends, as if that was all this conversation was. “Just look at how far you've all come. You've taken planet after planet, and you've forced the Emperor to draw his troops back to defend the core. Nobody is coming to save Eriadu, and although many on my planet would disagree, we aren't strong enough to save ourselves. So the question isn't whether we're going to surrender, it's when.” She smiled. “ _That's_ something we can talk about. Although I do have one small question before we begin.” Her eyes darted to Leia, sitting at Luke’s right hand. “Who is this charming young lady you have with you? A romantic liaison for Vader’s heir…?”

Luke held up a hand to stop her before she went any further. Leia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It always seemed to be the first place people’s minds went when they met them. It seemed that rumours prefered fantasy to the truth - not that she particularly liked anyone knowing the truth either. But she and Luke had talked about it, since the question kept coming up, and she’d agreed it had to be done. 

“Leia isn’t anything like that,” Luke was saying. “She’s actually… my sister.” 

Lady Tarkin’s eyes widened, but only for a moment before her expression turned calculating again. “One must wonder how many other members of Vader’s family have been hiding out in the galaxy these past decades,” she mused. 

“None that _I_ know of,” Luke said. “But we aren’t meeting to talk about my family.”

Tarkin’s smile was sickly sweet. “As you wish my lord. Let us speak of terms.”

\----

**3 ABY - Outpost Umbra, Unknown Regions**

“Another system’s fallen to Vader,” Rex said, slinging his pack down onto the couch. He was barely out of the shuttle and he hadn’t even taken the time to get comfortable before starting in on the latest news from the galaxy at large. He’d been away two weeks, picking up necessary supplies that couldn’t easily be found on their little sanctuary planet.. 

“You can always save telling us for after you’ve had some tea,” Ahsoka told him. She’d had a pot of water ready to boil all afternoon, anticipating his return. 

Rex shook his head. “Too kriffing frustrated for tea,” he said, pacing. “Been sitting down for the last ten hours, nothing to do in hyperspace but think.” News about the galaxy was slow to trickle through to their safe house out in the midst of uncharted space, making them reliant on these supply trips to hear how the civil war was progressing. “More about Luke as well.”

Ahsoka leaned forwards in her seat, suddenly intent. “Tell me,” she requested.

“Apparently he managed to negotiate Eriadu’s surrender,” Rex replied. “All the New Empire news sources are enthusing about it. ‘Another amazing diplomatic victory for Lord Vader’s heir!’” He sounded disgusted. “They’re not even wrong about that - Eriadu’s well placed to control hyperspace traffic in that part of the galaxy.”

Ahsoka hummed in acknowledgement. “Did you see any more broadcasts from Ryloth?” she asked. 

Rex nodded. “Recorded them, if you want to see it. Grisly business I suppose, but justified for all that.”

It was not worthy of a Jedi to take the satisfaction that she did in watching slavers die, but Ahsoka had not been a true Jedi for a very long time. She had seen enough of slavers’ work in her time on the Outer Rim, both during and after the Clone Wars, that she had no real qualms about her reaction. The man her Master had once been would have felt the same way. The man he now was… she had no idea. She didn’t know who he was now. He wasn’t Anakin. Skyguy couldn’t have done what he had done to her. But… she couldn’t write off what he was doing for Ryloth as just some mere ploy for their political support. 

The outer door opened, shaking her from the confusing direction of her thoughts. Dogma strode in, his own pack over his shoulder. “I came back as soon as I saw your shuttle,” he said, greeting Rex. “Good to see you sir.”

“You’d think I’d been gone six months rather than two weeks,” Rex groused, but he was smiling widely to match the more hesitant one Dogma was sporting. Even after all this time healing the rifts between them, letting Dogma come to terms with himself and his past, the clone still lacked confidence in himself and in his bonds with his _vod_. 

“Will you tell me the news Captain?” Dogma requested. Ahsoka tuned out the repetition in order to go back to her own thoughts. 

How much of Anakin was left in Vader? Enough to care about his son. Enough to care about the slaves of the Outer Rim. Even if that wasn’t much, it was an awful lot more than she would ever have thought possible. Everything she knew about falling to the Dark Side said that nothing of the old person remained - and even if she had hoped differently once, their last encounter had snuffed out that small glimmer of hope. Or so she’d thought. That glimmer was starting to shine once more. 

She had already made the decision, she realised. She was just waiting to come to terms with it. 

“Rex,” she said. “When will the shuttle be ready to head out again?”

Rex blinked. “Could have it ready in a few days,” he replied. “But we won’t need to go again for months.”

“There’s something I need to do,” Ahsoka told him. “Someone I need to talk to. You won’t like it, but it simply has to be done.”

\----

**3 ABY - ISD- _Colossus_ , hyperspace, en route to Garrenthum System, Anoat Sector**

After a resolution at Eriadu that was a lot less bloodless than the fighting there had been, they were off on the next stop of Aphra and Kallus’ propaganda tour slash contribution to the war effort. Luke took the opportunity that the time spent in hyperspace gave him the way he usually did, and went to find his sister. There were still plenty of Arkanii memories for them to work through - they still hadn’t found what they were looking for. Predictably, she was with Han, although they weren’t getting up to anything that was going to make him regret walking into their room. 

“Hey kiddo,” Han greeted him, looking up from his quiet conversation with Leia. “That time again is it?”

Luke nodded, smiling. It was nice having Han around again, that was for sure. He didn’t often compare his life now with how it had been those months after becoming part of the Rebel Alliance, but one thing he did miss more than most about those days was the camaraderie of it all, particularly amongst the pilots. Here he was too ‘important’ to have that with anyone - Han was a much needed breath of fresh air in that respect. 

Han sighed. “See you later then Leia. Maybe I’ll have to come to some of your fancy political events just to get to spend some more time with you.” 

Leia laughed. “For all that part of me would love you too, we both know it wouldn’t go well,” she replied. 

The pair of them left together, heading to the room on the Star Destroyer that had been set up specifically for their joint meditation sessions. 

After that first vision of the Arkani Tusken, Luke hadn’t seen the man again, but he had found himself in the same desert time and time over. Whenever he dipped into the store of memories that had been given to him he found it there waiting. He had shown the place to Leia the next time they joined their minds together in the Force, and probably some of the Inquisitors would have seen it too from time to time, if they happened to be looking down the link at the right time. They generally tried not to do that too much though - apparently he was too ‘bright’ to look at long in the Force. 

The desert was useful. It was helping them make progress. The memories hadn’t been in any kind of order, except that of intensity. The strongest, most powerful memories of all the Arkanii who had spent their last moments pushing themselves into the Force, hoping to leave some part of them behind, some part of their teachings and knowledge. Hoping the hegemony of the Jedi would not wipe all their wisdom from the universe. Luke and Leia had watched it happen. Watched them die from the inside - felt the pain, the fear, the horror. The desperation. Leia’s skepticism about their people and their ways had died at the same time. No-one could have experienced it and still thought the _Arkanii_ the evil ones. 

It hadn’t been pleasant getting past that, but once it was over there wasn’t any need to return to those particular memories. Luke and Leia had been able to move on, working their way through a hundred moments, from simple day to day temple life to the minutia of lessons and study. Even though most of it wasn’t helpful in the sense that it was going to aid them in defeating the Emperor, it was still expanding their experience of the Force, and their ability to use it. 

The Inquisitors already spent enough time thinking him more impressive than he was. This wasn’t helping, but Luke still wasn’t very good at persuading them of anything. At least by now they… well, they didn’t trust him exactly, but they no longer seemed to think he would kill them at a whim. It was a kind of progress. 

“Lady Tarkin seems like the type to gossip, doesn’t she,” Leia said, apparently out of the blue. Luke looked at her questioningly, not understanding why she’d chosen to bring this up. “I mean, she’s going to talk about… me.” Leia looked uncomfortable about the idea. 

“Um, I guess she might,” Luke replied. 

Leia shook her head in disgust. “I hate the idea that in the end everyone’s going to know about it,” she said. “That I’m related to _him._ ”

Luke winced. “Keeping it a secret would probably do more harm than good though, in the end.”

“I know,” Leia admitted. “It doesn’t mean I don’t wish otherwise. And I suppose I’m surprised the news about it hasn’t spread faster than it has.”

“A lot of the galaxy won’t see it as such a bad thing - certainly not now,” Luke said. They’d spoken about this before, when Leia had agreed to stay with him rather than leaving with Han, but he understood his sister’s position. He understood how she felt about Vader - something that maybe had softened ever so slightly over the past year and a bit, but still not something she was about to change completely any time soon.

“I’m not exactly a fan of that fact either,” Leia said. “But I’ll try not to think about it any more today. We won’t get much done otherwise.”

The meditation room was dark and quiet, neutral in the Force. Luke and Leia settled down into their seats, emptied their mind of distractions, and fell into a trance that by now was second nature. They stopped being separate individuals, and became one person with one mind, one will, one goal. They were in the desert, and then they were in the temple. In the next memory.

_“I am concerned by how close the Sith fleets come now to our own territories,” they were saying - the one whose memory they lived was saying._

_“Their concerns are not with the Arkanii,” the one they were facing replied. The voice seemed male - the features of the figure were concealed beneath a suit of ceremonial armour which the part of them that was Luke thought seemed partially Tusken in influence. A mask covered the face - plasteel and bone mixed to create the snarling visage of a krayt dragon haloed with its ten horns plated in gold._

_“Forgive me Son of the Suns,” they said. “But history tells us the Sith are rapacious in all their doings. They will not hesitate to strike out at us if an opportunity presents itself to them.”_

_“That opportunity will not become available to them - not it they know it will prove too costly to their efforts elsewhere in their war.”_

_In the memory they nodded slowly, although they remained skeptical. “I have heard that those who follow the Path of Poison fear only one thing - their own death. They spend the lives of their followers like scattering dust into the desert. They desire mastery over all that lives and they would steal the water out of the mouths of our children if they believed they could.”_

_“All of that is true,” the Son of the Sons agreed. “But we are the Arkanii. They would be right to fear us, for we have strength enough to protect our own and bring them the deaths they so fear.”_

_“Do we?” they asked. “When the records recount tales of the Sith undying, leaping from their bodies as they perish and stealing those of others?”_

_“I know the tales of which you speak.” The man in the krayt mask paused to think. “I do not think Qel-Droma or Exar Kun would allow any of their acolytes to master such a technique - they would keep such knowledge to themselves. Nor should any strike against us from the Sith come at the hands of either of its Lords.”_

_“Yet if it did come to war,” their memory self said, “would the challenge of our forces and of ourselves not be enough to attract their attention?”_

_“No possibility cannot come to pass. Yet even in this we are not without a weapon to counter them. The galaxy is ancient, and our people have preserved much of the past. There is a Force technique passed down amongst the Path of the Suns which was developed to fight the Sith. To make sure they need only be fought once.”_

_“Then I may rest more easily with that knowledge. I thank you.”_

With a shudder the memory fractured, splintered and faded away. Luke took a deep breath as he felt himself become seperate from his sister once again. He turned to look at her with hope in his eyes and saw she was clearly thinking the same thing. “We’re close,” he said. “We know who has the memories we’re looking for.”

\----

Fourth Sister ducked beneath the swing of the saber, rolled, turned and struck out. Her opponent parried and their blades crackled against each other before they broke apart and started circling again. Twelfth Brother was grinning and so was she… no, she should call him Ezra, like he wanted, like Luke wanted. It was hard to get out of the habit of referring to only his rank. She risked a glance at the pair of hssiss but the beasts were used to them sparring now and were playing their own game, wrestling in a spirited but harmless way. 

“Have you felt it?” Twelfth… Ezra asked her, on the edge of panting. 

“Felt what?” she replied. The two of them were close together in skill, a constant minor annoyance. She was older than he was, more highly ranked. But he was a Favourite, and he had the benefit of training with Luke so it wasn’t the irritation it could have been. 

“The ripples in the Force, from what Luke and Leia have been doing,” he said. 

Fourth Sister nodded, taking his meaning now. “I’ve felt it.” Stronger than he had most likely, since she was experiencing it almost from the inside. She had stuck by her choice and not shied away from what Luke had placed in her mind, and as time had passed since then she had become aware of him the way he’d claimed she would. Honestly she had thought it part of the same trap, although even at the height of anxiety when her thoughts whirled like the mists of hyperspace she hadn’t been able to work out how. The sting never came. The jaws of it never closed over her. 

As Luke had said, actions proved his intentions more than empty promises, and he hadn’t _done_ anything. In dreams or unguarded moments Fourth Sister had started to get glimpses of her dreaded Lord and it had been far from what she’d been expecting. It had taken her longer to trust it. Even now she sometimes second-guessed herself, wondered how long a long con could be, but she could talk herself down by reminding herself that in the end she was a pawn that simply wasn’t worth that kind of energy. 

Luke wasn’t the Sith they’d all thought he was, but it made him no less threatening. He was something else, different and new, dangerous. He might not mean to hurt them, but he was a natural force like a desert or an ocean - there was no malice in the way they killed you, only your own carelessness. 

“They must be getting closer,” Ezra mused, ducking another of her strikes. Fourth Sister scowled at him.

“If you can still talk we aren’t working hard enough,” she said. She lashed out in a flurry of blows that shut them both up for a few moments, but neither that or her opponent’s retaliation were enough to get past the others’ guard. She could press to see which one of them tried first, but this was meant to be friendly. A strange concept after Mustafar, but she found she preferred this. It left her with fewer scars. 

“They might need our help to face him,” Ezra said, stubbornly sticking to the topic. 

Fourth Sister would have sighed if she’d had breath to spare. “Any of us would drag them down, not help them. We’d be a liability against a Sith Lord as powerful as the Emperor.”

“Still, there must be something we can do,” he insisted. 

He’d taken his mind off the fight, was thinking of Luke instead. She took advantage of it to duck under his next stroke rather than parry it, sweep his feet from under him, and lower her lightsaber to his neck. Ezra froze. In her peripheral vision, Fourth Sister was aware of the hssiss tensing in a faux-casual way. She shook her head in admonition and helped him up. 

“See,” she said. “Liability. You. Me. Everyone save the three of them.”

If there was anything worse than the Twelfth Brother being able to duel her to a standstill most days when he had his head in the game, it was trying to fight the Princess. She had been a Padawan for a bare year, if that, but she had a steely focus and intensity with a saber in her hand that made you recognise her father in her. The Emperor must be cursing himself for all those years she’d been in the Senate under his very nose. 

She left Ezra looking mournful and went off to shower. They’d be moving on to the next system soon enough, and she might be needed. Fighting the Emperor and consolidating their holdings were two sides of the same coin, and if she could not help with one, she could help with the other.


	53. Chapter 53

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the war goes well, there is a further reunion, and Vader, Luke and Leia begin their plans for the final confrontation with Palpatine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A combination of being busy and lacking motivation/inspiration delayed this I'm afraid, but this fic is very close to completion now. One more chapter after this one, I think.

**3 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Nal Hutta, Y’Toub System, Hutt Space**

Vader stood on the bridge of _Executor_ , watching the dark, oily clouds drift with glacial slowness across the skies of the planet below. The Hutt Clans were burning, their holdings going up in purifying flame. Any vessels which attempted to leave the atmosphere were forced back to ground or shot down if they would not comply. There had been attempts to sue for peace, but he had not permitted them as much of his time as it would take to listen. The Hutts had never offered mercy to their foes or their slaves. He would not be more generous than they. 

Orbital bombardment was an official tactic of the Imperial Navy, classified by the code Base Delta Zero, but one generally used against poor Outer Rim worlds. Rich Core planets could afford the planetary shielding that made such tactics useless. Nal Hutta however was not a typical Outer Rim world. Crime and complicity with the Imperial war machine as directed by the Emperor had filled their coffers with credits - enough to buy that form of protection. It had not been sufficient to save them. The slave underground had grown strong now, and all too eager to strike back against the _Depuran_. They had infiltrated the planetary defence grid and shut it down the moment Vader’s fleet had jumped into the system, close to the planet. 

From there it had been a simple matter of destruction. 

He would have liked Luke to be here for this. His son deserved to see the death of the _Depuran_. He deserved to see justice and vengeance, two sides of the same coin. Luke was of course inclined to mercy, but he had grown up on Tatooine and knew enough of the Hutts that Vader had little doubt his objections would come too hard. Yet the demands of the ongoing war had continued to separate them, with their link through the Force the only contact that remained. Vader reached for that link now, wanting his son to feel his own satisfaction. 

_Father…?_ Luke’s voice was tenuous at this distance, but still unmistakable. Vader felt the warmth of his son’s love for him, which still constantly caught him off-guard every time he sensed it, and permitted himself to enjoy it for a moment. 

_Our offensive at Nal Hutta goes well,_ he told Luke. 

_I thought it must be that_ , Luke replied. He shared his impressions of Vader’s emotions along the link, so that for a moment it became a loop of feedback, an endless circle. Vader basked in it for a moment, then gently shook himself out of it. 

_What of you?_ He asked. 

_Leia and I are getting closer to finding the memory we need,_ Luke replied. _Although when we do, I have no idea how we’re going to get close enough to Sidious to confront him._

_Permit me to worry about that,_ Vader said. His attention was distracted from the conversation with his son by Piett’s sudden presence at his side. The man had an expectant look - by now the Fleet Admiral had learned to detect by Vader’s manner when he was engaged in using his Force connection with Luke. _I must go. We shall speak again later Luke._ “What is it Piett?” he asked aloud. 

“A shuttle approaching, milord,” Piett replied. “The pilot appears to be the known Rebel clone named Rex, whom we last encountered in the company of Leia Organa’s strike force several years ago. He states that he has brought an old friend with him who wishes to talk to you.”

At first Vader could think of no reply. He had not thought much of Rex since sending him away with Solo and the others the first time, after their battle with the Emperor’s forces was over and _Executor_ was theirs. He could admit that was because he had shied away from doing so, knowing it would bring memories that were full of pain and the possibilities which could have been. He had thought Rex dead for many years before then. Had looked for him - but had not found him. The Captain was amongst those he had wronged, as Vader had wronged all the clones, and he had not made Rex the same apology yet that he had the others. 

Time for that now. 

Who was this friend Rex spoke of - now that was another question. Another clone? Vader could think of no-one else. Precious few remained from the time of the Clone Wars who might say they had been friends of Anakin Skywalker. 

“Allow them to land,” he told Piett. “I will meet them in my quarters.”

Piett nodded, turned on his heel, and went to carry out his commands. Vader turned back to the vision of utter destruction in the viewscreen, swirling clouds of black and green and red lit with bright bursts from time to time within, and watched there for several long moments before going through to wait for his guests in a more private area. 

\----

**3 ABY - Alliance High Command, Dac, Mon Calamari System, Outer Rim Territories**

Two years ago Mon Mothma could not have imagined this kind of success against the Empire. Two years ago they were still recovering from the destruction of the fleet over Scarif and the death of so many X-wing pilots in the battle against the Death Star at Yavin 4. True, the destruction of the Death Star had been a spark of hope to relight a waning fire, but she didn’t fool herself - that alone wouldn’t have bought them these sorts of victories. A massive stretch of the Outer Rim and Mid Rim in the galactic north and east was now Alliance territory, free once more, and they were beginning to make inroads into the Expansion Zones. 

She only hoped they hadn’t sold out their ideals to achieve it all. 

At least it was impossible to deny that Vader was a much more pleasant tyrant than Palpatine. His rule was no less a durasteel fist backed up by the full force of Imperial might, but his policies were something that she could almost live with. Vader’s vendetta against slavery on the Outer Rim had made him enemies amongst the rich and powerful throughout the galaxy but so much more than that was that it had given him popular support - something she had imagined the Executioner of the Empire would never have. Not amongst the galaxy’s downtrodden and oppressed. 

And yet he was still a tyrant. Still an enemy of democracy and freedom. Still looking to put his son upon a throne once the war was done, and keep him there with any violence necessary. Mon didn’t like that she was allied with Vader and his forces. Some of his officers were complicit in war crimes, even if he tended to attract those Imperials who weren’t _directly_ responsible. When this was over and Palpatine had been thrown down, what then? Would the Alliance have the strength to turn on the New Empire and take them down too?

Mon was seriously concerned they wouldn’t be able to do it. That she would simply continue the violence of the war until the stars were drenched in death and little of any value remained. She remembered the Clone Wars, which had been bloody enough even though half the forces involved were droids, and the last few years had been bloodier still. Did her people have the stomach to turn on those who had been their allies for almost two years now? Did they have the morale for years more of war?

What was the alternative? This wasn’t simply a matter of morale and war matériel, but morality. In the end, the Alliance had been fighting to restore the senate and the democratic republic for over twenty years, and if they didn’t see that through no matter what then they were spitting on everyone who had already given their lives for the cause since the first rise of the Empire. 

Perhaps Leia would have some sort of solution. After all she had been working with her brother for months now to find a way to counter the Emperor’s Sith abilities - which had been rather a surprise for Mon to learn about. At the same time she’d been accompanying Luke on his Imperial propaganda tour - more than anyone she would know exactly what kind of political power the New Empire held, and how that power might be broken. 

Things were much better than they could have been. Mon simply had to keep telling herself that, and hope that things continued to work out in their favour.

\----

**3 ABY - ISD- _Colossus_ , Garrenthum System, Anoat Sector**

The pair of them were deep in the memories now, although in this state more of a single entity than two apart. They had delved down through layers of knowledge little more than stratified, fossilised time to find what they were looking for. It was slow and patient work, tracking like Tusken marking a trail in the desert, but they could sense now how near they were. They had followed the clues of memory upon memory before and it had brought them here. 

They - _Luke-and-Leia_ \- surfaced into the frozen moment like breaking through water into air. They were in a training salle of some kind, walls of smooth ochre sandstone and the floor softened with drifts of sand. A woman faced them in robes of a blue so dark it was almost black, although as she moved they saw silver embroidery glint subtle patterns along her sleeves and down the front where it was pulled tight with a sash as bright white as the moons. Her hair was pulled back from her wide, smiling face - dark hair, dark skin, dark eyes. 

“Come,” she said. “Again.”

The man whose memory this was, whose place they took in this vision, grunted. Half-annoyed, it sounded. “I did not come here to trade blows with you, Mother of Moons. Darkness approaches. A darkness that must be burned away in fire and will.”

“You have spoken to me of your fears before,” this ‘Mother’ replied, still smiling. “And I have agreed with your argument. Given the threat posed by those who walk the Path of Poison, mingling the teachings of Sun and Moon should be done. I do not test you because I yet argue, I test you because you will not need this skill at battle’s beginning, but at its end.”

The man nodded, understanding now. He leapt forward, a brilliant yellow lightsaber bursting active in his hands. A blue saber leapt from the woman’s robes and blocked his blow, and then the two were off. _Luke-and-Leia_ watched from within the memory, focused, intent. Both Arkanii were masters in the Force which swirled around them within the vision, feeling no less real for the fact that this had happened far away and thousands of years ago. 

When both were panting with effort a subtle sign from the woman brought a halt to their sparring. “Well?” asked the man in between the gasps of his breathing. 

“Pay attention,” the Mother of Moons replied. “From inside this may be difficult to follow.” Her hand reached out and the Force moved with her. It was a solid thing, a wall closing like two halves of a trap. A grasp like telekinesis yet not, something acting not on the physical but on the mind itself. The man stiffened - _Luke-and-Leia_ were inside his head and felt it too. The crushing pressure around them and him. A tightening band, a knife-stab headache. It was instinct to fight, to reach out to the Force to fight it off but… the Force was there but not there. It burned within them - within the man - but the greater Force was behind the wall of pressure and reaching for it was like scrabbling at glass. 

“With this,” the woman said calmly, beyond, “the Sith cannot run.” She dropped the hold - the Force came rushing back - and she held out a hand to pull the man up from where he had fallen to his knees. “Now, you shall practise until you master this technique, and then you will be ready for the battle to come.”

\----

**3 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , Nal Hutta, Y’Toub System, Hutt Space**

Vader had given some thought as to how he would present himself to his guests upon their arrival. Being able now to spend some short time out of the suit had allowed him exposure to more natural light than that of medbays or his endless array of hyperbaric chambers over the years, and thus he had begun to lose some of the pallor and visual sensitivity that had developed over that time. With the eye of faith he could see something of Anakin Skywalker of old in his face once more. Rex, he felt, deserved to see him in the flesh, to look him in the eye, to read his sincerity when he made the apology that he must. 

There was time enough - but only just - for him to summon Kix, and for the medic to help him out of the suit and into the set of comfortable, sterile, hypoallergenic robes he now kept for purposes such as these. Then they waited together for Rex to arrive. Kix, after hearing who was coming, had been adamant about remaining and Vader would not prevent him. He deserved this chance to speak to their old comrade just as much. 

Rex came into the room first, his eyes sharp shards of dark flint in an unsmiling face. His arm supported a woman in a long, simple robe, and when she raised her head so that Vader could see her face he felt the shudder of sudden shock and recognition. He had been too long wearing a mask - he had forgotten how to hide his emotions. 

“Ahsoka…”

How was it that he had not felt her coming? She was his own padawan, her presence in the Force was as familiar to him as those of his children had become. Now that he saw her here standing in front of him, he could not help but reach out with the Force for her. He met nothing, absence… yet even with his mind slowed by the sudden wave of surprise he was still able to think the problem through.

“So… you are the one who taught my daughter how to hide herself,” he said.

Ahsoka’s gaze was no friendlier than Rex’s was. “I taught her how to hide from you,” she said. “And she did, until the will of the Force wished otherwise.” At her side Rex reached out and pulled a chair away from the table to that she could sit. As she did so, pulling her hood back, the ruined mess of scars that was all that remained of her cranial montrals was exposed. Vader did not let himself flinch at the sight. It would be unworthy of him to attempt to hide from what he had done - what had been necessary to preserve his padawan’s life. The Emperor would not have accepted that she was dead without proof. 

That she lived still was evidence enough that it had been successful.

“I have to say I didn’t expect to see you like this,” Ahsoka said, gesturing to him. She sounded weary more than angry. Perhaps she had finally tired of running.

“It is not permanent,” Vader said. “My suit remains necessary apart from short periods. Still, my son has been the bearer of more gifts than I deserve from him, and Kix has been a more than able medic.”

“Just doing my job sir,” Kix said dryly. His gaze was fixed on Rex, caught part-way between suspicion, nostalgia and amazement. 

Vader understood such mixed emotions. He took a deep breath - and luxuriated momentarily in the fact that such a thing was possible. “I am glad you are here Captain Rex. I must offer you an apology.” That much surprised them both, he could see. “I failed you Captain, as I failed all of your _vode._ I did not listen to the warnings that Fives brought us, and I did not listen to you afterwards, when you began to perceive what had been done to you all. I have… taken some steps to make things right. I hope that even though we remain on different sides, the truce between the Rebellion and the Empire will permit you to visit your _vode_ and see the truth of my words for yourself.”

It took Rex some time to work out what to say in reply to that, and he seemed to struggle to find the right title to call his former commander. There was a vast, deep ache in Vader’s heart as he waited for Rex to decide, a heaviness born from guilt and shame. At least the other members of the 501st had been close enough for him to protect them. Rex had been out there alone in the galaxy, fighting for his life. 

“I waited a long time to hear those words from you General Skywalker,” Rex said at last, in even measured tones. He was suppressing any emotion in his voice - even the title ‘General’ had none of the respect if would have had years ago. “Up until the attack on _Executor_ I thought all my brothers were dead. Then I found out they were alive, but still slaves. You were our General - you were meant to have our backs. But you didn’t.”

“You are correct,” Vader admitted. “The past cannot be changed. The future can.”

“You were the Emperor’s executioner,” Rex said. “Even if you’ve turned on him now. Even if I were to forgive you what you’ve done to me and my _vode_ , do you expect me to forgive all the blood on your hands? On the Empire’s?”

“I cannot ask for more than you are willing to give.” Nor for what did not need forgiving - much of what Vader had done at his master’s command had been needless and perhaps even contrary to the Empire’s goals, but not all of it. He still believed in the founding goals of the Empire. He still believed the Empire was necessary for peace and order in the galaxy - and if Rex did not, changing his mind after so long would not be easy.

“Dogma came to find us. He told me what happened - the proof that finally made you see. And the… discussion you had with our _vode_ afterwards.” Rex shook his head. “It messed poor Dogma up all over again, just like Christophsis.”

“How is he?” Kix interrupted, with an urgency he was trying to supress. 

“Healing,” Rex replied. “As best he can.” He turned back to Vader. “But yes, finally you did try to make things right. So thank you. For that much. And for apologising now.”

It was hard to describe the weight that lifted from inside his chest at hearing Rex speak those words. It was not forgiveness, but it was acceptance. That was enough for him. 

After a moment of silence, Ahsoka spoke. “No apology for me Vader?”

A little of his temper flared before he could control it. He rounded on Ahsoka, speaking with more ire than he meant to - although at least the remaining weakness of his larynx prevented it being too venomous. “I will offer no apology for saving your life, my padawan!”

Next to him Kix started to speak but Rex held out a hand to stop him. He didn’t look surprised at the turn the conversation had taken, but he must have discussed this with Ahsoka beforehand. She had given them their time to speak and now it was her turn.

“Is that what you call it?” Ahsoka replied, matching his anger with her own. “Leaving me to die of a fatal wound!”

“Fatal for most togruta,” Vader said. “Not for a Jedi. You had already shown me your power in the Force during our battle. I did not doubt your will and capacity for survival.”

Ahsoka snorted. “Is that an attempt at flattery, Lord of the Sith? When I went to Malachor I hoped there was still something of Anakin Skywalker remaining within you, but you proved me wrong then. Has anything changed? You’re still steeped in the Dark Side - even if I was blind to the Force I could still see that much in your eyes.”

It was true that the Sith-yellow was obvious without the mask. Vader might have practised calling the Light to him at times, but it had not changed that. He would not abandon the Dark. “I am a Sith and I do not deny that,” he said. “However it has come to my attention that the Sith were once… more than they have become.”

Ahsoka looked at him with suspicion. “What do you mean by that?”

“The Sith have a Code, as the Jedi had one. Sidious does not follow the letter or the spirit of the code.”

“So is that why you’ve turned against him?” Ahsoka sneered. “Something more than just the tradition of Sith apprentices killing their masters? You haven’t changed at all, have you despite what you claim to be doing for the galaxy - and you’re dragging Luke and Leia down into the darkness with you.”

Vader’s fist hit the table with the loud clang of metal against metal. “I am _not_.” His breathing was harsh and ragged in his ears. “Yes I admit when I found Luke I intended to make a Sith of him. But my son has found a different way. A better way. One that will give him the strength to face the Emperor even without the power of the Dark Side.”

His honesty rang in the Force like a bell - in the Dark side and the Light. 

Ahsoka frowned. “You really mean that…” she said, unable to deny what the Force was telling her. 

“Seek him out,” Vader told her. “Ask him what he has learned. You will see that my son is wiser than I - and that he will rule this Empire better than either of the Lords of the Sith.”

Ahsoka was eyeing him with the wariness one would give a wild animal. “What are you playing at here?” she asked. “You really do mean to give him the throne… So who are these reforms of the New Empire coming from then? Him or you?”

“Did you think that finally having the freedom to act against slavery meant I had returned to being the Anakin Skywalker of old?” Vader asked, divining some of her thoughts. It was not true… although it _was_ true that he was much closer to being that man now than he had been for years. The Jedi Anakin had died when he had knelt to Sidious, and the last remnants of him had been burned away in the fires of Mustafar. Yet who was Luke’s father, if not Anakin Skywalker? He did not think of himself by that name and even Luke had not assumed so far as to call him by it. 

“I am not Anakin Skywalker,” he said slowly. “But equally you are not the Ahsoka who fought in the Clone Wars. Neither of us are our past selves.”

“I need to think about this,” Ahsoka said. “And it seems I need to talk to your children - although we will stay here long enough for Rex to see his brothers.”

“You are free to come and go aboard my ship as you wish,” Vader told them, then after a moment of hesitation, “I hope this will not be the last time we talk.”

“We’ll see about that,” Rex replied, and helped Ahsoka to her feet. Both left, but neither without a backwards glance. Vader nodded to Kix.

“Go after them. See that they are shown to quarters - and take the time to talk to your _vod_.”

\----

**3 ABY - ISD- _Colossus_ , Garrenthum System, Anoat Sector**

“It’s good to see you again Leia,” Ahsoka said, gathering the other woman up into an embrace. Leia squeezed her tightly before they broke apart. “How are you?” It wasn’t just a nicety; she hoped Leia would pick up in her tone of voice that she wanted to know if she was here willingly, if more than just the bonds of family kept her with the New Empire. 

Her brother - this son Vader wanted to place upon the throne of the galaxy - was watching them both with a smile both fond and excited. The Dark Side was present on board the ship _Colossus_ , but it wasn’t clinging to him that she could sense. He didn’t feel quite like the Light either, at least not the Jedi Light. It was more like Ahsoka herself these days, or one of the many other cults of the Force that existed out there. That gave her some measure of hope.

“I’m okay,” Leia said, and there was no lie to it. “Come meet Luke properly. Ever since he heard you were coming he’s been excited to meet you.” 

“Leia told me all about you,” Luke said, “or I guess, as much about you as she knows.”

“We weren’t with you, Rex and the others for very long,” Leia said apologetically, “but you told me a lot about Anakin Skywalker. Of course Luke wanted to hear all about it.”

Ahsoka tried not to wince. She had hoped that coming out here and confronting Vader would give her some kind of certainty about him, but it hadn’t. If anything she was more conflicted now than she had been when she’d just had Rex’s reports to go off of. She still couldn’t make sense of how the Anakin she’d once known had become… this. How had he fallen? Why had he turned to the Dark Side? Nobody she’d spoken to had seemed to have any idea - not Obi-wan, not Bail Organa, not Mon Mothma, not Yoda… Perhaps his children would have the answers she sought. Of anyone out there he seemed to trust them, and surely they would have asked him? 

“I think we all have a lot to talk about,” she said, addressing Luke’s hopeful look in her direction. “Not just about your father. Vader told me the two of you have been up to something interesting as well. Something to do with the Force.”

Luke hesitated slightly. “You were a Jedi once, right? I’m not sure how well this would line up with what Ben was going to teach me - I mean, Obi-wan.”

“I’m not a Jedi anymore,” Ahsoka said. “And I’m interested in anything that could inspire a Sith like it’s inspired Vader.”

Luke shrugged. “Okay then. It all starts with this holocron we found…”

\----

**3 ABY - SSD- _Executor_ , in hyperspace**

As the territory claimed by the New Empire continued to grow and its forces continued to swell with defectors and freed slaves only too eager to support those who had released them from bondage, so too more and more information fell into their hands. Much as the Emperor continued to attempt to conceal his strategy from them his efforts were limited by his own Empire crashing down around him. Vader had long since come to the realization that Sidious’ policies over the last twenty years had helped the Rebellion’s propaganda, but he had not fully appreciated how much it had weakened the morale and certainty of their own people. The promise of a better, fairer way, a way free of corruption and needless suffering without the Rebels’ foolish goal of a return to the ineffectual Republic of old had sent the men and women of the Empire flocking to their banner. 

Some of them brought valuable information with them. 

Within his hyperbaric chamber Vader settled into a state of deep meditation, reaching out through the Force for his children. Luke and Leia were waiting for him, each of them deep in meditations of their own. They found each other in an open plain, a confluence of imagery pulled from each of them. The flat cooled-lava plains of Mustafar were whipped by the sand-strewn winds of Tatooine leaving drifts of gold against the black. On the horizon the mountains of Alderaan impaled the skies with their snow-clad peaks, and incongruous native Alderaani trees sprouted from stone here and there. 

They were all creatures of spirit here, not of crude flesh. His children were forms of white light; Leia sharp and cool, Luke warm and soft-edged, whereas he was sooty darkness and a chaos of crimson. 

“Father,” Luke said, reaching out to fold him into an embrace that took Vader off guard - although by now it should not have. “It’s good to see you again… in a manner of speaking.”

“It is good to see the both of you also,” Vader told them. Leia’s arms were folded over her chest, no more eager than ever to associate with him. Yet merely tolerating his presence was progress of a sort, and more than he had the right to hope for when it came to his daughter. “I have news.”

“So do we,” Luke said. Satisfaction flashed in him, in the Force. “We have it, finally. The way to stop Sidious. I’ll tell you all about it - but let’s hear your news first.”

“It is clear this information comes at the right time,” Vader said. “No doubt it is the will of the Force that has brought it to us. Several of the most recent defectors to our side have come from the ranks of the Imperial Security Bureau and they speak of a secret project the Emperor has begun in a backwater region of the Outer Rim, above the moon of Endor. He is pouring what little resources the Empire can muster into its completion, and has been monitoring the project _personally._ ”

“So… we know where he is,” Luke said. “There’s no need to try and draw him out from Coruscant… he’s not even there.”

“Wouldn’t we have heard something about this by now?” Leia asked him, ever skeptical. “All the intelligence we have, including what the Rebel Alliance has provided, suggests that Palpatine remains in the Imperial Palace.”

“As is his design,” Vader replied. “These agents permitted me to see their memories voluntarily - they spoke the truth. One has been there, albeit briefly. Rath Velus did not have a chance to view the project himself but he did see the Emperor at a distance.”

“Did they have any idea what Sidious is building?” Luke asked. Vader shook his head.

“A weapon of some kind,” he replied. “I have my suspicions. It may even be a second Death Star based on the Separatist-built superstructure recovered at the end of the Clone Wars.”

Bitter anger crackled through Leia. “If so, more fool him,” she snarled. “We’ll destroy this one just like we did the last, and we’ll destroy him with it.”

“Yes - and much will rest on this Force technique you have discovered,” Vader said.

“We’ve been working on it,” Luke said. “It’s not the easiest and we’re going off a very old memory.That does offer some advantages though since this borrowed part of us knows we’ve done it before. Ahsoka and the Inquisitors have both been helpful. Sometimes it’s just thinking about things from a different point of view. And Ahsoka doesn’t mind us practising on her.”

Vader felt a distant, vague spike of concern. “You have not been damaging her…”

“We’re not you,” Leia sneered at him, although he could feel the words came almost from habit rather than true venom. That lessened the blow. “The technique doesn’t hurt. It just holds the target seperate from the Force.”

“How…?”

“Think of it like creating a vacuum,” Luke said. “Pulling the air away and holding it. Or maybe like pulling someone away from the air - it’s more of a… mental hold. Sidious can’t run if he can’t cast himself into the Force. Anything he tries will just bounce off us and the walls we put up - at least that’s the idea.”

“I understand.” The theory as his son explained it made logical sense. “We cannot underestimate the Emperor however,” he warned them. “He is stronger than you know.” Perhaps stronger than Vader himself knew. He was far from convinced that he had seen the full extent of his former master’s power. 

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Leia said. “So we know where he is, and we know how to kill him. Now we need a plan to get to him.”

Vader nodded. “We cannot bring the might of our forces to bear against this problem,” he said. “To do so will give the Emperor all the warning he needs from the moment of our arrival in the Endor system. Time enough to chose to face us on his own terms or to flee the field. We must give him no reason for concern until we are ready to spring our trap.”

“A small team then,” Luke said. “To sneak into the system, find Sidious, get close to him, and then strike.”

“I have no doubt he is seeking for us in the Force even now,” Vader warned. “Searching for our location. Leia, can you teach your brother the technique for hiding yourself that Ahsoka taught you? If Sidious senses only me, he may believe I have grown arrogant enough to face him alone, in the way of the Sith.”

“Since Ahsoka taught me that… I’ve changed,” Leia said, looking at her own hands, how they glowed with spiritual energy. “I’m… stronger. Trained. I don’t think this will be easy to hide… but with her here to help us I think we have a chance.”

“It need not be for long,” Vader said. “My old master’s arrogance will be his downfall. He has the utmost confidence in his own abilities. He hid from the Jedi for years. He spent decades maneuvering to take the reins of the galaxy. Even no I have no doubt he believes he will survive the death of what he has built and intends to return from the shadows years later to reclaim it. We will take advantage of this.”

“He will die,” Leia said, and the Force itself sang the truth of it. Intent and will into truth and prophecy; the ideal of the Sith Lords of old made flesh.

“He will die,” Vader echoed her, and knew together, the three of them would make it so.


	54. Chapter 54

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final confrontation with Palpatine is at hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies that the formatting looks a little weird. Not sure how it happened, and not sure how to fix it.

**3 ABY - ISD-** **_Colossus_ ** **, Garrenthum System, Anoat Sector**

 

Of course it wasn’t so easy to leave a war in full swing. The galaxy was in chaos and even if many of the planets in the sectors under New Empire control were happy to have them there, that wasn’t  _ always _ the case. Besides which there was fighting everywhere on their borders as they continued to face Palpatine’s Empire as well as the splintered-off Moffs and crime lords who had also claimed territory for their own. Vader was their chief strategic commander… but even so as Luke had come to learn during his lessons about war, no-one was indispensible - or no-one ought to be. With the help of Grand-Admiral Piett, his father had constructed enough of a plan that it ought to hold them through the next week, which should be enough time for their mission.

 

On Luke’s own side, it wasn’t too big of a deal to take time off the ‘grand tour’ Aphra and Kallus had organised. Of course Aphra complained about having to reschedule everything, but that was just Aphra being Aphra - she didn’t mean it as anything more than teasing. 

 

“You’re sure you don’t want any of us to come with you?” Ezra asked him, as Luke packed his things to leave. “The Emperor isn’t likely to be alone; surely a few Inquisitors, the hssiss…?”

 

Luke shook his head. “Thank you for offering,” he said. “But it won’t be safe. Besides, we need to go in as quietly as possible…”

 

“...and none of us have Ahsoka’s hiding technique down yet, I know.” Ezra sighed. “I just don’t like that you’re all going into danger and there’s nothing we can do to help you.”

 

“You’ve all of you been more help already than I would ever have asked for,” Luke said. He grasped Ezra by the forearm - the warrior’s handshake he’d picked up from the clones. “I’ll come back. We all will. The Force is with us.”

 

Ezra nodded, although Luke could still see the worry in his eyes. “If things change though, if you need us… call us and we’ll come for you.”

 

“Hopefully we won’t need to,” Luke said. “But no plan survives contact with the enemy I know. You’ll be coming with the extraction team though won’t you.”

 

“I suppose.”

 

“I need to go now,” Luke said, clipping his lightsaber to his belt. “The shuttle’s ready to leave as soon as Leia and I are on it.”

 

“Come back safely,” Ezra said, “And may the Force be with you.”

 

_ \---- _

 

**3 ABY - Imperial Shuttle-** **_Sunset_ ** **, Endor system,  Modell Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

 

When the shuttle came out of hyperspace into the Endor system there wasn’t much time for Luke to take in the nature of the Force all around them, but he’d been practising. As he concentrated, shaking off the disorientation of the reversion to realspace he felt the contours of it, the ebb and flow of life and death in the system, and began to infiltrate his own Force presence out amongst it all. Ahsoka’s technique wasn’t an easy one to master but when their success depended on it Luke had been very motivated to succeed. Next to him he could feel Leia doing just the same. 

 

They had intentionally come out on the other side of the gas giant from its moon. Now Luke fired up the sublight engines and they started to make their approach as the orbital path of the moon swung it around and into view. Then, as the shuttle’s sensors magnified the area for them it became obvious what secret weapon the Emperor was here to oversee. Luke felt his heart sink.

 

“As I suspected,” Vader said. “A second Death Star.”

 

“Does he really think this is going to save him?” Leia said with disgust. “It’s a waste of his credits and resources.”

 

“Somehow I don’t think this one will have an exhaust vent weak point,” Luke said glumly. 

 

“Perhaps not,” Leia said, “but this thing can only be in one place at once. The war is galaxy wide - and Palpatine is losing. By the time this is ready we might even have defeated him even if we hadn’t found out where he’s hiding.”

 

“Your tactical assessment is accurate,” Vader told her. “The first Death Star was also strategically flawed in this way - besides which the destruction of a planet is wasteful in the extreme. Once Sidious is dead we will strip this abomination down for parts.”

 

Leia frowned. “Why aren’t there any capital ships here?” she asked. “If this is Palpatine’s last hope, why isn’t he guarding it?” 

 

Luke looked at the moon so close by, thinking the problem through. “He must have some other way of protecting it,” he said slowly. 

 

“A shield,” Vader said. “Based upon the moon below and projected around the zone of construction. It is the most likely possibility.”

 

The navcomputer beeped on the shuttle’s dash. “That’s the calculations done,” Luke said, briefly checking them over. “Time to go dark.” It was a non-standard use of the shuttle’s systems but with a bit of ingenuity and a program both he and Vader had worked on, they’d convinced the navcomputer to calculate a vector that would bring them right to Endor’s moon without engines aside from the initial burn. Hopefully then it would be possible to work out where exactly the Emperor was.

 

His father head tilted towards the battlestation. “He is aware of my presence,” he said. Luke could feel it too, a sudden surge in the darkness that warped the Force ahead of them, like some kind of monstrous searchlight sweeping the skies had now paused and focused in on them. 

 

“Does he know where we are?” Leia asked, her voice tense.

 

Vader shook his head. “I do not believe so - merely that I am here. He… is calling for me.”

 

“He wants you to face him,” Luke said. 

 

“Yes. That is as we expected.”

 

Everything around them was still and quiet. All the shuttle’s systems were shut down now, even the life-support and the gravity. They were held in their chairs by the pilots’ harnesses and they were breathing on the cabin’s air alone. Luke tried to suppress his nervousness. They’d done the calculations. It would be fine - reaching Endor’s moon wouldn’t take that long. 

 

And when they did… Sidious was waiting for them, but not for all of them. At least they hoped not all of them. 

 

\----

 

His master’s presence was a heavy weight Vader had all but forgotten. It had been upon him for so many years he had no longer noticed it each time he faced Darth Sidious, not until he forsook his loyalty. Now he wondered how that had been possible. It choked him like the ashen clouds of Mustafar, made his muscles and even his unyielding durasteel prosthetics feel weak. He could feel Sidious searching for him, beckoning him to come closer, but as of yet there was not the insidious needlepoint attention that would have been proof he had found them. 

 

The Lambda shuttle approached the moon now, its gravity beginning to draw them in. There was evidence of activity around the skeletal structure of the half-completed Death Star and between it and the moon itself. A base was likely down there. 

 

They had considered their options prior to embarking on this mission, however those had been limited by lack of information. They had not truly known what they would find. It might be possible to silently land on the moon and capture a transport from there to the battlestation above, or they might equally attempt a bolder approach upon the Death Star itself. Either option held the chance of discovery and the loss of the element of surprise. If that happened, it would be unwise to count on Sidious’ overconfidence to imagine he might wish to strike his wayward apprentice down in person. His cold anger might have grown to the point that he would simply order their vessel destroyed. 

 

“We shall continue our indirect approach,” he said aloud, addressing his children. “I believe short bursts from the sublight engines may show up on sensors but will not be sufficient to track our position. We will infiltrate from the as-yet unconstructed areas of the battlestation.”

 

They both nodded, understanding the thrust of his plan. “With the amount of traffic around there, they might see us simply by looking out their viewports,” Luke pointed out.

 

“In that, we shall trust ourselves to the Force,” Vader replied. 

 

It was easy work to isolate the engines from the rest of the shuttle’s power circuits to minimise their energy profile. The sublights themselves did not take well to cycling brief startups and shutdowns, however they would hold long enough for them to reach their goal. The vast mass of the Death Star began to loom large before them, as did the hurrying dots of cargo carriers and construction equipment moving forth around and upon it. There was no change to those bustling patterns, no sign that their presence had become known. 

 

They might as easily be drifting scrap metal than a ship. 

 

Some areas were still no more than skeletal superstructure, and more intensive work had not yet begun on them. Vader had aimed the shuttle at one such area, and now they passed between the massive durasteel and doonium girders into the space within. More shielded inside, he chanced a more prolonged engine activation, enough for maneuvering thrusters to navigate towards a place they could anchor the ship and proceed onwards. 

 

There were vacuum suits supplied as part of the shuttle’s emergency equipment, and as Vader brought them in close to a tangle of metal that should hide them from both eyes and sensors, Luke and Leia struggled into the somewhat unwieldy things. 

 

“I remember learning a little about starship construction,” Leia said. “There’ll be mobile airlock segments blocking off the pressurised part of the station from the un-pressurised corridors they haven’t completed yet. But the closer we get, the more workers around there’ll be.”

 

“Then let us move quickly,” Vader suggested, opening the shuttle’s hatch into empty space and leaping. 

 

\----

 

Ralrorral looked up from her arc-welder, lowering the flame and altering the tint of her faceplate so that she could actually see the corridor around her. She could have sworn she felt something, a sense of movement. Inside her ill-fitting vac suit all she could hear was the sound of her own breathing and the noise of her blood rushing in her ears - not that there was any atmosphere to carry sound here anyway. Had it been some kind of vibration in the deck plating? 

 

Cautiously she pushed off and floated in zero-g over to her work-partner Attichit, tapping him lightly on the shoulder. He turned to her setting aside his rivet gun and gave her a quizzical look. She raised her hands and began to sign to him. “I felt something. Something is not right.”

 

He put a hand against the wall, feeling for vibrations, then shook his head. “I sense nothing,” he signed back. “We should return to work - we must not fall behind on our quotas.” 

 

Ralrorral nodded. As Wookies she and Attichit were valuable slaves, but their people’s natural toughness meant their Imperial taskmasters had no hesitation in handing out heavy discipline for the slightest infraction or perceived ‘laziness’. Then she felt it again. A tremor in… some sense she didn’t even know how to quantify. She didn’t understand what she was feeling, only that she was. 

 

“Something coming,” she signed rapidly to Attichit, trying to convey the sudden sense of urgency that had enveloped her. 

 

A red blade suddenly burst through the side of the corridor not ten feet from where they both were working. Ralrorral looked at it in helpless astonishment as it cut a large oval in the wall plating, and then it retracted and the oval was floating free into the corridor. A large figure almost as tall as either of them pulled itself through the hole followed by two smaller ones. 

 

Attichit had grabbed onto her arm and was holding hard enough to hurt even through the vac-suit, but she couldn’t look away long enough to see if he was trying to sign to her. A blade of burning plasma… a lightsaber. The weapon of the Jedi long dead - and now the weapon of only one. Darth Vader. The fist of the Empire. He’d had no hand in pacifying Kashyyyk, but he had done that to plenty of other planets across the galaxy. Ralrorral had been a slave of the Empire for years now but perhaps this was her chance to get some revenge…

 

Except think, her rational mind was saying. Why on earth would Darth Vader of all people be down in the belly of this weapon they were building, carving his way into it? 

 

Attichit pulled her back against the wall. Vader and his two vac-suited shadows paused when they noticed them, but not for very long. One - a light skinned human male from what little she could see inside the helmet - kept looking at her for a while as he floated past and up the corridor. What was he thinking? She couldn’t begin to guess. 

 

The urgent feeling under her skin began to settle down. She looked at Attichit. 

 

“What was that all about?” he signed. 

 

“No idea,” she replied. 

 

\----

 

Once inside the Death Star proper it wasn’t hard to find uniforms for Leia and himself, but disguising Darth Vader wasn’t exactly an option. Luke had very little practise with the Jedi mind trick, but he understood the theory of it and it was about the only option they had if anyone spotted them. The interior of the battlestation wasn’t as busy as he had feared though, which made sense when he thought about it. It wasn’t operational, so why staff it more than the bare minimum? 

 

Most of the people here were probably slaves, like those two Wookies they’d passed on their way in. Luke tensed just to think about it. Once the Emperor was dead they would make sure they freed everyone before they even thought about destroying this place. If there’d been some way of doing so then and there… but the chains that held these slaves weren’t visible ones, just the lack of any way off the Death Star. 

 

Had there been any slaves on the first Death Star? The one he’d destroyed? 

 

Luke shook his head, trying to clear it of such dark thoughts as he followed his father through the seemingly identical passageways towards the Emperor. He could feel Sidious, a shadow in the Force that made it harder to dissipate Luke’s own Force presence. Harder to hide light against light when there was precious little to be found. 

 

Vader stopped them at a junction ahead, gesturing them back against the wall.  _ The turbolift ahead will lead us to the Emperor _ , he said through their Force bonds.  _ It is guarded - no Jedi trickery will work upon them. _

 

Luke risked a very careful look around the corner. He could see the ‘lift his father was referring to - and the two guards unlike any he’d seen before robed head to toe in red.  _ What are they? _ He asked.

 

_ The Imperial Royal Guard _ , Vader explained.  _ Not Force-users, but sensitive to the Force and trained to resist it. Remain here. I will handle them. _

 

Luke had no time to protest. His father had turned the corner and was striding forwards drawing his lightsaber. The guards took immediate notice, raising long staffs that they’d been keeping by their sides. Some kind of energy field was crackling around the long shafts. 

 

“Your master has anticipated your arrival,” the one on the left said. 

 

“He waits for you above,” added the one on the right. Their voices were distorted by their helmets, and almost impossible to tell apart. 

 

Vader made no reply. Luke could feel him in the Force, a dark storm-cloud, iron-willed and determined. The guards shared a glance with one another, wary, uncertain if they would have to fight but prepared to do so if necessary. Then Vader was close enough to strike, and the hall became a sudden blur of a red blade and those strange pikes. Whatever they were they could hold up to a lightsaber, unexpected as that was. Luke held his breath, watching the battle, marvelling again at his father’s sheer deadly power. Arcs of energy crackled in the air making sudden bright patterns. 

 

The guards were good. At least as good as any of the Inquisitors Luke had been training with, and he knew that simply because they weren’t dead yet. For a few moments he wondered if he ought to go out there and help his father, even took a hesitant step forward, before Vader’s saber scored a hissing line across one guard’s chest beneath the pike they’d raised to strike. They fell backwards and the air filled with the smell of cooking meat. Luke gagged. 

 

The other red-garbed figure didn’t last much longer after that. 

 

Vader deactivated his lightsaber and turned towards Luke and Leia. “Come,” he said. 

 

Luke approached the turbolift, trying not to look too closely at the bodies. He’d seen plenty of the war on his tour of the New Empire’s military but for the most part it had been space combat, sterile and bloodless. Only occasionally had he gone down to the surface of a planet while a battle was still raging and corpses still lay where they had fallen. He saw Leia’s fingers clasp around her forearm, where their father’s blade had taken her hand, her face twisted. He would have reached out for her through the Force as he always did, but that would have meant potentially revealing their presence. He simply put his hand on her shoulder instead.

 

“Sidious will have sensed this,” Vader said to them. “As he has surely sensed me. Have your weapons ready.”

 

Then filing into the turbolift, they began the ascent.

 

\----

 

The kyber crystals were singing. Soft and quiet, yet a living heartbeat in the Force. Vader had felt this before on the first Death Star and was well aware of its significance. This weapon was functional, even if the battlestation surrounding it was months from completion. Understandable, that its builders would have prioritised its most powerful defence against whatever might be sent to destroy it - even his own  _ Executor _ . It only proved the wisdom of the approach the three of them had chosen. 

 

The Emperor’s power was all around them, marring the sweet chime of the crystals not yet blooded by the death of millions. His presence was sickness, rot, death and decay. It was anger, hate, malice. It was stealing the breath from Vader’s scarred lungs and making his bones ache with the pain of remembered lightning. How many times had it been, that his master had disciplined him in that way? He would find it a less effective method now, thanks to the combination of Vader’s technical knowledge and Kix’s skills. Any small advantage that could be used to sway the coming conflict toward them was a boon worth taking, and so they had. 

 

The turbolift was slowing. It came to a final, smooth halt, and the doors hissed open before them, revealing a large room with three vast, circular transparisteel windows arrayed around its walls. A wide stair before them led up to a throne on the platform above, currently turned away. Darth Sidious was there. He was a black hole in Vader’s senses, deep and vast in the Dark. 

 

The Dark Side licked around Vader himself with wary anticipation. It was oddly familiar, and he realised he had felt it once before even if he had not known its meaning at the time. On General Grevious’ ship  _ Invisible Hand _ , when Count Dooku had been on his knees with two lightsabers at his throat and his real master commanding his death. This was the Dark Side upon the clash of Lords of the Sith. Master against Apprentice. 

 

The Dark was a tool in the hand of its wielder not a thing with a will of its own, or so Sidious had always taught him. Yet when Vader listened to it rather than simply bringing it and binding it to him with the fuel of anger, pain and hate, he became less sure that that was so. He had felt fear, when it believed he would renounce it for the Light. Whether he believed it to be the whipped, wounded, poisoned beast the Arkanii described and which Luke had seen in his visions was another matter. Still, whatever the nature of the Dark Side, it would not automatically favour one of its users over another - not until one proved themselves the stronger. The Darkness would reward success, reward victory. 

 

Perhaps this was better than the alternative. Vader knew himself to be the Chosen One, but of the two Sith here, Sidious was the one who had fed the Dark deep with death and suffering and pain throughout the galaxy. Poisoned food perhaps, unnaturally caused rather than the natural cycle and balance of life and death, but all the food the Dark Side had known for many thousands of years.

 

He wasted time in his own thoughts. The final confrontation was Sidious was nigh. 

 

_ Keep behind me _ , he sent to Luke and Leia, and approached the stairs, beginning to climb. He kept his saber in his hand. As he reached the upper platform the throne began to move, and his former master turned to face him. Oft before in their interactions Sidious had kept an expression of mild amusement - as often at Vader’s own failings as at his successes. There was no trace of amusement now. 

 

“You have grown bold indeed, Apprentice of mine,” Sidious said. “If you believe your military victories make you strong enough to face me.” 

 

Vader made no reply. Let Sidious talk - let him rant and rave and give breathing space for his children to become accustomed to the awful weight of his presence. 

 

As though the mere thought had brought them to his attention, the Emperor’s eyes flicked to the two figures in Vader’s shadow. “And you have brought your two  _ dear _ children, about whom I have heard so much,” he sneered. “Most foolish. As your replacements they will become more powerful Sith than you ever were.”

 

“You are the fool if you think either of us will ever turn to the Dark Side,” Leia replied, anger rippling inside her and then spreading into the Force as she and Luke withdrew themselves from hiding, revealing their true power. The Emperor laughed. 

 

“My child I feel your anger, your hate. Give into it now and take the power that it will give you. It is your birthright.”

 

“My birthright was Alderaan,” Leia replied. “And I don’t want the power you’re offering.”

 

“Oh, you are mistaken,” Sidious said. “As you will soon find. You seek to kill me, yes? Do you imagine yourselves strong enough to do it?”

 

At Vader’s other shoulder Luke levelled a steady gaze at the Emperor. “We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t know we are,” he said. “Your mistake was letting us get this close.”

 

Sidious tapped his fingers against the armrest of his chair. “We shall see. Kill them.”

 

At his words Imperial Guards began to appear from hidden positions all around the perimeter of the room. Vader had been expecting something of this kind, knowing from long experience that for all Sidious’ own skill his bodyguards were never far away. He activated his lightsaber, hearing Luke and Leia do the same, and pulled the Force to his command as he waited for the first attack. 

 

“Let us test your bold claims,” the Emperor said, and the first guard struck. 

 

Rapidly Vader gave himself over to the rhythm of battle and the song of the Dark Side. Every punishing blow and moment of pain, every death, only furthered his strength. On either side was burning Light - Leia’s cold star - and the wild heat of Luke’s own particular flavour in the Force, yet they did not clash with the Dark or snarl up against it. Instead there was harmony, a single band of power flowing between the three of them, the unbroken circle of their Force bonds. They were all a part of a singular whole. Perhaps for the first true and honest time in his life, Vader felt he was one with the will of the Force. 

 

Well-trained as they were, the Imperial Guard could not stand long against them. One by one they fell, bright spots of life winking out. Vader, Luke and Leia stood in the midst of a circle of red-robed bodies, the cauterised stink of burnt flesh perfuming the air. 

 

Sidious stood from his throne. His hands came together in a single clap - Vader read surprise in his eyes, but that was not the primary emotion. No,  _ that  _ was an overwhelming greed. 

 

“Extraordinary,” the Emperor said, the word little more than a whispered croak. “Such potential.”

 

“It will never be yours to use,” Vader said, pointing the red blade of his lightsaber at his former master. “No Skywalker will ever serve you again.”

 

“Then perish,” Sidious replied, and stretched out his hands. The Force gathered. 

 

Vader managed to catch most of the lightning on his blade, but enough crackled past it to lock his muscles in place with violent, painful spasms. He grunted and, unbalanced, sank to one knee. Every nerve sang, but he had borne this pain many times in the past. He was well used to it - and this time it did not lock up the mechanism of his breathing with it. Pushing his agony into the Dark, he attempted to force himself to his feet. Then Luke’s blue lightsaber - that which had once been his own - intercepted the path of the lightning, blocking yet more of it. As the two of them held the Emperor’s attention, Leia dashed forwards with her own saber burning green. 

 

It was not quite enough to take Sidious off his guard, but enough for him to call his little-used lightsaber to his hand from its hiding place within his robes. Red blade met green in a crackle of energy, and the Force lightning stopped. Vader wasted no time in pressing the attack. It was clear Sidious had not expected him to recover so quickly. Vader’s thrust nearly pierced him through the shoulder but the old man eeled away from it with the dexterity of one half his age.

 

For a moment there was deadlock as the three of them circled the Emperor. The Force was a maelstrom around them, all the wild, unchecked fury of Tatooine’s killing sandstorms. There was no pure straight line from the past into the future, no path in the Force to follow in anticipating their enemy’s moves. There was only shadow, chaos, and confusion. 

 

Luke and Leia were part of that storm, bright lights shining like beacons. Vader could feel their presence reaching out, swelling into walls of energy in preparation for the moment to come when they would have to focus all their strength on preventing Sidious from throwing himself into the Force. A distraction was necessary - Sidious could not be permitted to suspect even the hint of what they planned to do. Vader went on the attack. 

 

Aggressive styles of combat had always been where his strengths lay, but he had never had cause to fight his once-Master. Sidious had a style which was unfamiliar, and his skill was undeniable. Vader’s memory was thrown back briefly to the time all those years ago when he had arrived at the Senate building to find Mace Windu’s lightsaber at Palpatine’s throat, the other three Jedi Masters who had accompanied him already dead. Mace’s Vaapaad had been Palpatine’s match, and indeed there was something akin to that style in the way Sidious fought now. Yet Vader had rarely ever sparred with Windu, and that was disadvantaging him now.

 

The strikes came fast and furious, red blade upon red. Vader was calling upon the Force and he could feel Sidious doing the same, but the Dark was elusive in this moment, sound and fury but little strength. Any purchase either of them could find upon the other with the Force slid away - throws or chokes or holds would not avail them now. Nor would taunts - neither had the breath. 

 

And then the Force sang. 

 

Luke and Leia, their voices ringing out as one.  _ Now! _

 

Bands of power fell around Sidious, mental might against mental might. His hold on the Dark slipped - his guard opened up for the sheer shock and surprise of it. Vader did not waste the opportunity. He struck true, and his lightsaber slid between Darth Sidious’ ribs, through his heart and out his back through his spine. The stunned look on his former master’s face was one he intended to treasure. 

 

Sidious’s mind raged within the confines of the prison Luke and Leia had made for him. Vader could feel his children strain to keep control as the Sith Lord died, desperation and fury giving his final struggle power, but their hold did not break. Together they had always been stronger, something more than they were apart. 

 

Finally, with a howl of rage, the last ember of Darth Sidious passed into the Force. As it did so for a single moment it felt as though the whole universe was flapping free like the untethered sail of a sand-barge as a great weight and anchor was lifted from it - but it was only a moment. The world righted itself once more. The Darkness around them faded a little, seeming to sigh as if exhausted. As it did Vader almost felt it brush against his cheek like an affectionate caress, but it might merely have been a trick of his exhausted mind. 

 

\----

 

The Emperor was dead. If the simple evidence of his body in front of them hadn’t been enough, Luke had  _ felt _ him die as he and Leia held the Sith in place. It had been… horrible. He never wanted to do it again, but then he couldn’t imagine that he would ever have to. “It’s over,” he said, panting, lowering his lightsaber. “I… I can barely believe it.”

 

“He’s dead,” Leia replied, deactivating her own blade. “That doesn’t mean the war is over - not yet.”

 

“No,” his father agreed. “Now we must make an announcement to the galaxy. When the old Empire’s remaining military perceive this truth many will lay down their arms, but it would be foolish to imagine some may not fight on until the bitter end.” 

 

Luke knew he was right. Leia’s eyes narrowed though. “We’re not making any kind of announcement until I know just what you’re going to say,” she said. “If you announce to the galaxy that Luke is the new Emperor…”

 

Luke winced. Of course he ought to have known that was coming. It was what he’d been dreading the whole time they had been training and training to defeat Palpatine, what he’d tried to put to the back of his mind simply because he hadn’t thought of another option. One thing he had to say for Aphra and Kallus’ grand tour was that it had let him meet and talk to real Imperials for the first time. Of course he’d heard their propaganda just like everyone else in the galaxy, but that wasn’t the same as hearing the rationale for their beliefs out of their own mouths. 

 

It was as his father had said. Some people out there really believed that the Empire made them safe. They thought it protected them from the kind of chaos - piracy, slavery, crime - that plagued the Outer Rim. They believed the Republic had been corrupt, caring only about the next credit, ignoring suffering - and some of them were old enough to really remember back then. He couldn’t just dismiss their concerns even if he believed that democracy could be made to work and that the Republic could be remade better than it had been before. 

 

He didn’t want to be Emperor. But a lot of the people who had been fighting to defeat Sidious weren’t ready to put aside twenty years of the Imperial Order. Maybe with time they would be, but not straight away. 

 

If he really truly refused this his father might step in but as Vader had already said, he had no real head for politics. He’d had the wild thought at one point that Leia might be able to take his place, but she would hate to be thought of as Vader’s heir - and that’s what she’d be, if she sat on that throne. Luke couldn’t ask that of her. 

 

“Father, you know I want the return of democracy,” he said. “I want to bring back the Senate too but… we need to make sure we do it properly. So many people have said the old Republic was corrupt that they can’t all be wrong about it. There can be order without there being a tyrant.”

 

He could feel the conflict in his father’s heart. Vader truly believed in the Empire - or rather in what he thought it had the potential to be - but that was a form of politics which assumed a perfect ruler. Putting Luke - putting  _ anyone _ \- up on a pedestal like that was only doomed to failure. 

 

Next to him Leia sighed. “I can see where you’re going with this Luke. It makes sense, for a smooth transition of power and the opportunity for peaceful change, but Mon Mothma and the Rebel Command aren’t going to like it.”

 

“Maybe if I didn’t  _ call _ myself Emperor…” Luke said, with a hint of desperation.

  
“Then you  _ will _ take the throne of the galaxy?” Vader asked him. There was a sudden sense of hope in his voice. Luke felt like he was walking a tightrope, a balancing act trying to keep the expectations of too many people steady. 

 

Leia was nodding. “Something that calls up images of a monarchical tradition,” she suggested. “How do you like the sound of Galactic Regent.” She was half joking, but Luke actually did like it. 

 

“This isn’t going to be easy to explain in a simple holo-transmission,” he said, “or to the Rebel Alliance. But I’ve thought a lot about what will happen if I refuse outright and… I can’t unleash that kind of chaos on the galaxy. I can’t betray the ideas of all the people who have joined the New Empire because they genuinely believe in it. But I want everyone to know it won’t be permanent.”

 

“I’ll hold you to that if the power goes to your head,” Leia told him, and Luke grinned. 

 

“I hope you’ll help me work out how to make the changes that need to be made,” he said. 

 

“Ruling the galaxy as brother and sister?” Leia joked. “Of course I’ll help you nerfbrain. Isn’t that what I’ve been doing for the past two years?”

 

“Okay,” Luke said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s work out how we break the news to the galaxy.”


	55. Epilogue

**4 ABY - Imperial Palace, Coruscant, Coruscant System, Corusca Sector, Core Worlds**

 

Fourth Sister twirled her lightsaber, keeping her weight low and watching for an opening. Opposite her Luke - or the Lord Regent, to give him his more proper title - was doing the same. It was a battle played out in their minds and in the teasing forays of the Force around them as they listened, waited, and then…. She saw her chance and struck. 

 

Luke parried, and they ran through a flurry of blows, up, down, twist, feint, as the breath came harsh and fast in her lungs. Their sabers locked, the plasma currents pulling against each other, and then Luke took a step back motioning with his hand that their sparring session was over. 

 

“You’re getting better at this,” he told her, going to the side of the dojo to find a towel to wipe his face and neck. 

 

“As are you,” Fourth Sister replied. There were canteens of water waiting for them, and she took a long draught, relishing the cool liquid. 

 

“It certainly beats trying to thrash out a new political system with Mon Mothma and those Moffs,” Luke said. “Although talking of new things, have you given any thought to picking out a name yet?”

 

Fourth Sister frowned. It had taken long enough for her to come around to the idea that maybe Luke Skywalker wasn’t the duplicitous, crafty and cunning Sith Lord she’d thought he was. All the implications of that were still starting to settle in. As he’d promised it had been actions rather than words that had convinced her, and even now she still sometimes caught herself waiting for the other shoe to drop. This name business was more of the same. Names had to be earned and she wasn’t convinced she done anything particularly noteworthy, but Luke had different ideas about the matter. Hence pushing Fourth Sister and her siblings to pick out new identities for themselves. 

 

“I… I still don’t know,” she said. “It ought to be something appropriate, something that fits me, but…”

 

Luke nodded encouragingly. “I get it,” he said. “It’s kind of a big decision. But equally I guess you don’t have to stick with something even once you’ve picked it. You could always change it later if you find something that works better.”

 

Fourth Sister felt a little bit affronted. “No. Names are important!”

 

“Is that what you really think, or is it part of what the Inquisitorius taught you?” Luke asked her. 

 

She took a moment to think about it. “I think it’s what I really believe,” she replied. “Or at least it’s close enough. So… I don’t mind waiting until I have it properly figured out.”

 

“Okay,” Luke said. “Meditation next?”

 

Fourth Sister nodded. As they left the training salle together, she marvelled at how much her life had changed in the last few years, and all for the better. She felt… odd as it was to realise it… she felt truly happy.

 

\----

 

**4 ABY - Ryloth, Gaulus Sector, Outer Rim Territories**

 

Ryloth was a much busier place than Ezra had expected. Subconsciously at least he’d been prepared for a planet like Lothal where he’d grown up, and maybe Ryloth had been like that at one time. The war had changed things, which he’d have realised it he had taken a moment to really think about it. Ryloth was now the centre of the effort to end slavery in the Rim, and each day hundreds of sentients came here to search through the records retrieved by the Commission for Recovery and Repatriation looking for some mention of their families or places of origin. Many moved on, but some stayed to build a life here, at what was rapidly becoming the capital of the sector in all but name. 

 

It was strange being away from the war effort, and being away from Luke. Ever since they’d met years ago on Vrogas Vas they’d never spent much time apart. It hadn’t just been necessity or Darth Vader’s orders either - they had genuinely become friends. Now though there wasn’t much left to do in the galaxy aside from the clean up and if there was still more than enough of that to keep the Navy and Army busy it didn’t really need Luke’s attention either. He had more than enough to do in trying to bring back the Senate in a meaningful way. Ezra’s skills didn’t help much in that area, but he still wouldn’t have left to come out here if it wasn’t for the matter of unfinished business.

 

His old crew - his old family - specifically.

 

It hadn’t been hard to find them. It wasn’t as if they were trying to hide any more, and Hera was the daughter of the new planetary governor here, Cham Syndulla. Garazeb and Chopper had both stayed with her on Ryloth, although when the war had officially ended Sabine had apparently gone back to her family’s holdings on Krownest to try and repair her relationship with them. Ezra hoped he’d be able to find and speak to her after he was done here.

 

He hadn’t exactly parted from the Ghost crew on good terms. He understood why things had had to be like that. Looking back there were a lot of things he would do over if he could. There were lessons the Inquisitorius had taught him he now saw had been little more than another kind of lie. Still, who could say how things might have gone if he’d never been captured by Lord Vader on Lothal. Perhaps this had simply been the journey the will of the Force had wanted for him. 

 

He was still going to apologise. Hopefully they would be able to - if not forgive him - at least agree to talk to him. Maybe even make a fresh start of things. 

 

Or perhaps they wouldn’t want anything to do with him, but he would still have to try. 

 

\----

 

**4 ABY - Coruscant, Corusca Sector, Core Worlds**

 

Han had just put on a pot of caf to brew that morning and was waiting for the pan to heat up so he could start making their breakfast when Leia came through from the bedroom wrapped in her warm house-gown. She put her arms around his waist and snuggled into his back, taking in a deep breath and making a sound of pleasure. 

 

“Is that caf I smell?” she asked.

 

“It will be in five minutes Princess,” he replied. “Or should I be calling you Senator now? Soon-to-be-Chancellor?”

 

Leia laughed. “Mon Mothma is more likely to be voted in than I am,” she said. “For most of the Senate I’m too close to Vader and the old order for them to feel comfortable with me.”

 

“Yeah, like they’re so scared of Luke?” Han pointed out sarcastically, turning in her grasp to face her. “I think you’re giving them too little credit. You’ve all spent the time to get some sensible folks into those seats, not like the jokers that used to be in there under Palpatine or before.”

 

Leia smiled. “I’m just trying to be realistic. I do appreciate your confidence in me though. I can’t tell you how much it meant that you stayed, when you had the chance to go back to the Rebel Alliance or to anywhere else you wanted in the galaxy. You’ve always had my back.”

 

Han felt the flush over his cheeks. “Yeah well… maybe I just picked the winning team. Thought about that?”

 

“Stop pretending to be worse than you are Han,” Leia told him, then went still for a moment. She seemed to be listening to something far away - something in the Force he wondered? Or was she talking to Luke, or to Vader? 

 

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you these past few days,” Leia said when she came back from whatever had distracted her, and then seeing his expression, “no, it’s good news, I promise.”

 

“I’m listening.”

 

Her smile got even wider. “Han… I’m pregnant.”

 

\----

 

Elsewhere on Coruscant, Darth Vader opened his eyes. He had felt the young life growing in his daughter’s belly not long after she herself had become aware of it, and he basked in her happiness at telling it’s progenitor the news. He did not particularly like Solo himself, but he was forced to admit that the ex-smuggler did have some good qualities hidden within him. It was true that Solo had stayed with Leia all through her time with Luke, and that he had never begrudged her political ambitions or the power she wielded. He could put up with him as a son-in-law.

 

He wondered when Leia would broach the subject of marriage. He was aware she already had it in her mind. 

 

Soon enough he would be a grandfather. The swell of emotion which accompanied that thought was almost more than Vader could bear. For long years he had been without happiness, and might not have wanted it even had it been presented to him. Now he did not mind the Light it swamped him with. He could stand the Light; he could use it and the Dark in turn if he wished. He had a son who loved him despite everything, a daughter who could at least tolerate him, and now the promise of even more family to come. 

 

And he had hope, that the better world he had promised himself he would build might now come about. He own hands were too marred to build it, but his children would see the work through, and Vader would protect what they made. 

 

He was no Jedi philosopher or prophet of the Force, but he had a feeling that now… now things were in Balance. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this has closed out this fic in the way everyone was hoping, and that it's been a satisfying read for you all. Please feel free anyone to write in this verse if they wish - so long as you sling some credit back my way. :)


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